Transmission Leak - Not the axle seal

Cant tell from that angle I see red goop but in the picture its in the top of the picture so if its dripping down there your pic is upside down and poor.

Get the iphone photo magnifier app for you phone you will be able to zoom into that area clearly and take a lighted clear picture then at exact same angle take a zoom out pic so we can see the perspective of that shot.

Cant tell where your at angle wise.

Did you do some very high revving incident before it started leaking? Like your hybrid battery is getting very tired and with all the mountains you have to super rev the motor all the time and revving the snot out of the engine all the time?

Maybe some fluid got blown out of the vent? The trans in this car is super bullet proof if maintained.

Never heard of a trans leak on this car except from beat up inner shaft diff seal. Put a big piece of cardboard on the ground under the car not near the cat though to catch a leak.

My 07 doesn't leak a drop of anything except ac condensate.

 

I looked at your video again and yes you have some weeping going on there. Just not that familiar with the top of the trans never seen a picture of that area with the inverter out. I do know the vent is right at the top of the trans where it meets the engine.

I looked at the video Georgios posted at 1:25 pause it in the center of the picture you can see a hollow copper colored small tube poking out of the top of the trans about 4 inches from the mating edge of the trans/engine. I think that's the vent. It may help to take the air cleaner box off and get in there and move some hoses around with a flashlight.

I have a Craftsman $99 lighted borescope camera that would work perfectly for this operation. here's a photo of it in the spark plug well of my 07 looking for weeping oil and found some. You would be able to find that leak quick with that bad boy. Model number in the picture. Surprised none of the mechanics have one.

If you go to 7:38 I think is what you are calling the shift actuator there taking the cover off? Parking brake limiter in there they say.

I don't know never saw any of this in person.

The parking pawl limiter cover has fluid in that area maybe the cover bolts are loose?

I would try tightening up any bolt I could get to as far up as you can go cant lose?

if I was you I would somehow degrease that whole area in your picture wash it off good so you can see progressive leakage. Its all pretty wet back there in that one area.

Good Luck!.

 

Btw, Im from VT too. My folks had a summer camp in Plymouth Notch in the sixty's not far from Woodstock. I lived in Ludlow and Bennington and Arlington. Ludlow was cool instead of PT in school they would take you to Okemo for the afternoon free, I learned how to ski there.

Now its huge and hundreds of million dollar homes.

I was in 4th grade in Arlington the day Kennedy got shot.Teacher came in crying and sent us home early we all went crazy on the bus so happy to get out of school just a bunch of Little jackasses. I came home all happy and got my butt beat when i got home my Dad was a big Kennedy fan. Never saw my dad cry before.

We lived about a mile from Norman Rockwell's house & studio. They have a really cool NR museum in Arlington. Been there a few times.

Next to my grandfather and namesake who was a semi famous artist too Norman is my favorite.

 

Hard to tell what I'm looking at... Is there any way you can get a diagram of the transmission and engine and point to exact spot these pics are showing?

Also my latest thoughts:

Is that the motor/trans mount right next to this leak and could that mount be damaged in some way that increased the vibrations that lead to the gasket failing?

 

Awesome, getting a much better sense of it now... That pic where you circle the problem area makes me wonder if the leak may coming from further under that black cover and not in the place that's most visible.

 

I've seen you tube videos on removing and replacing the parking break actuator... That system is not bathed in trans fluid but is a separate system and if I were in your situation I'd remove, clean and inspect the actuator to determine that the source of the problem/leak damage is not related to that in any way.

 

Miss the days of trout fishing in the Battenkill in Arlington. Lovely town. Is the Candle mill still there?

I wonder if the case bolts came loose? I would get a torque wrench and start hitting those bolts. They have a much lower torque tightness then I first thought.

There's a post from another thread where someone posted torque setting on those bolts. I'll see if i can find it.

 

Roundabaout still in Manchester? I saw some awesome acts there back in the 70's.

Also take the air cleaner box out and use your bore scope from the top to look under the inverter.
Its hard to get a perspective on your photos.

 

I thought there was a way to remove this part without pulling the engine? I saw a youtube video that did that once. You might want to double check before you spend so much money on such a small leak?

 

Excellent.

You may want to get the trans fluid changed now since they worked on an area and some dirt may have gotten in there.
Check the dump bolt magnet for any metal. Then you will know its full at the fill hole and your basically then good for the life of the car.

I have changed mine 3 times since I bought my 07 brand new and found after you get the original break in nastiness fluid out its good for its life. This trans is very easy on the fluid its a precision masterpiece of engineering IMHO.

Takes 4 quarts of WS fluid. if you can jack up the front of the car its easy to do it yourself.

And if you can jack up the front of the car I'd catch the ecoil under the dash too. You inject coil cleaner back up the condensate drip hose. makes the car smell much better and keeps the ecoil clean and the drip tube clean.

Kool it on amazon.com Comes with the rubber injection hose.

 

ok everyone. This is one of the few gen2 Prius issues that will eventually rear its ugly little head to everyone. My transmission had been leaking, but the leak had progressed, soaking the rear of the tranny and my driveway. I am assuming that the internals really fling up the fluid to the parking rod area, because I had cleaned the area, and shortly thereafter, it had soaked the entire area, like I had never cleaned it. I can honestly say my transmission has had a hell of a tranny flush over the last year of topping it off. The job was not that hard, but space is limited and your curse adjectives will be plentiful. No one has listed how to fix it so here we go. I am starting with the removal of the inverter. I removed the inverter once before searching for the leak from above and of course the top of the tranny was dry. After doing this, I can see how this can be done with the inverter in place; if you are good at removing the top bolt listed below, go for it. I am not including pictures cause the original people provided them above.

Pull the ORANGE disconnect from the hybrid battery. KILL the voltage before doing anything with the inverter BEFORE it KILLS YOU.
NOTE---I let any residual power left in the system drain; letting the car sit for an hour. I also tested the high voltage connections for any power and I found none.
Remove the inverter (I am assuming everyone knows how to do this, not that hard just intimidating).
ANOTHER way I could see is to remove the wiper cowling so I could get to the top bolt, leaving the inverter in place.
Remove the parking motor cover revealing the motor innards. Spin the motor innards until you hear the parking rod click (car is in neutral), remove the motor innards. You may need the motor innards to spin the parking rod to get the parking motor assembly off.
Remove the big black plastic cover (three bolts). There's one bolt on top (why I removed the inverter) and two more; one on each lower corner of the big black cover.
Remove the three bolts holding the parking motor assembly.
MAYBE-----Put the motor innards back into where it normally goes and turn it clockwise and counter clockwise.
Turn the parking motor assembly clockwise and counter clockwise and pull towards the rear of the car all at the same time until it comes out.
There is an o ring on the parking motor assembly, mine was hard and broke apart.
Install new o ring; lube o ring a little and get ready to put it back into the transmission.
Place the parking motor assembly back into its hole.
While applying pressure on the parking motor assembly; towards the front of the car, turn the parking motor assembly clockwise and counter clockwise until it pops in.
Reassemble in reverse of above.
Not sure if this was important, but after putting the motor innards back into the the parking motor assembly, I turned the motor innards clockwise until the parking rod clicked and you could not turn the motor innards any further. The vehicle is now back in park.

You can now clean everything nice and clean cause you have------No more leaks. The o ring was 10 bucks from Toyota for a 1 dollar part. A$$holes.....