01 Accord Automatic Transmission Fluid Axle Seal Leak

Greetings!

I drive a 2001 Honda Accord LX, L4 VTEC, with an automatic transmission, and I’m having what I strongly believe to be a transmission fluid leak.

It all started about a year and a half ago when I had a mysterious (at the time) thumping noise coming from the front end of my car, particularly when turning. Long story short, the thumping noise ended up being a bad wheel bearing – I replaced the wheel bearings at that time and the noise was gone afterward. But while I had my steering knuckles removed to take care of the wheel bearings (I replaced both sides), it seemed like a good idea at the time to go ahead and replace my CV axles on my then-15-year-old car. It was my first time tackling a job like that. Although another thought at the time was the axles might play a role in the mysterious thumping noise, in hindsight, I don’t believe the (factory original) axles were bad parts at all. Hence, this probably wasn’t my best decision…

Anyway, my car never leaked a drop of tranny fluid up until a while after the repair – last spring I began noticing fluid drops on my garage floor and my transmission fluid level slowly decreasing. Crawling under the car some time later, I find the axles covered in fluid where they enter the tranny. Mind you I had kept a close eye on my tranny fluid and other fluid levels the whole time, topped off the tranny fluid as needed with Honda DW-1 ATF, and the fluid levels never got dangerously low. But when I saw the fluid on the axles like that, my first suspect was the axle seals where the axles enter the tranny, so last summer I replaced them around the same time I changed the transmission fluid with Honda DW-1 ATF. A couple years before this, for the previous transmission fluid change I took the car to my local Tanner Transmissions shop for a “flush” which amounted to being several drain and fills in series – before I knew any better about some of Honda’s peculiarities such as the right kind of transmission fluid, flushing, and such.

Fast forward to this spring/summer, and lo and behold, my right axle seal is leaking again as evidenced by fluid/grime around the axle and its surroundings and a decreasing level of tranny fluid. I also had to deal with an engine oil leak at this time – but I verified the fluid types by smell, color, and UV leak dye in the engine oil, and the engine oil leak was apparently fixed by replacing the valve cover gasket.

This last weekend I ended up changing the engine oil and the right side axle seal, but after driving the car around since then (shorter trips in town) my axles, both of them now, are wet with reddish fluid again… mind you I cleaned up the underside of the car real good with brake cleaner when hunting down the aforementioned engine oil leak.

I read another post on EricTheCarGuy about someone else who fixed a similar sounding problem using a Speedi Sleeve on his axle:

https://www.ericthecarguy.com/kunena/8-Service-and-Repair-Questions-Answered-Here/48105-output-shaft-seal-leaking

When I replaced my axles, I used remanufactured CV axles from NAPA, and the first time I replaced the seals I used Honda OEM seals from my local dealer; and the second time around when I replaced the right side only I used an SKF seal from NAPA. Now I’m going to give the Speedi Sleeve a try, rather than shell out over $900 for a new pair of Honda OEM axles; in addition to a new pair of Honda OEM seals, to see if my problem is subtle wear on my reman axle shafts that’s preventing the seals from sealing properly. However, during a couple of my tranny fluid top-offs over this whole course, the fluid level ended up ever so slightly above the max level on the dipstick. Would a very slight overfill (2-3 ounces at most) play a role in the leak?

I’ve watched Eric’s video on changing FWD CV axles (thanks for that by the way!) and although I separated my steering knuckle at the upper balljoint rather than my lower ball joint to access the axle, my procedure is otherwise similar to the video (I also take my suspension “wishbone” off for more accessibility.) I mention this in case anyone sees something in my axle R&I process that may cause an issue. I’ve been able to remove all seals by hand, and install them with a combination of my hands and an appropriately sized PVC pipe coupler, until the seal was flush with the surrounding surface, since I didn’t have a seal driver. I was careful not to scratch any seal bores and to put grease on the seal before installation as needed.

Does anyone reading this have any thoughts, concerns, or see anything I may have overlooked? Thank you for reading this long post and for all the amazing things y’all do!