DanZMan

Ok, to start off, when I bought the car it had a pinion seal leak. I decided that if I was going to replace the seal, I may as well put in new gears, so I went with 3.73's.

Car has been fine for about a year. For about a month I have been hearing a whining noise from my gears. I blew it off thinking that it is just new, steeper gears and that they will eventually make noise anyways. I stuck my head under the car the other day and noticed fluid on my exhaust and on my new drive shaft (new aluminum drive shaft was put on with my new gears). My assumption was...great, I have another pinion seal leak (after only 1 year). Took the car to my local oil change place to confirm this and here is what I found:

** I was in the pit with the technician

1. Fresh fluid was slung from the rear axle to about a foot forward. Even with the major pinion seal leak that I had before, I didn't see this much fluid.
2. Pinion seal was bone dry. It looked completely clean. No beads of fluid...nothing. This had me puzzled. The last pinion seal I had, you could easily see where it was coming from, the pinion seal was soaked.
3. Ok, so I have a major leak and my gears are making noise. This must mean my rear axle is dry and I am burning up my new gears, right? Bah...Fluid was full and clean. Technician stuck his finger in the top drain plug and measured the fluid level with his syphon. Everything checked out ok. I am puzzled again.
4. After further inspection we find that my new TA axle cover might be leaking, since we found a couple of beads of fluid around the seal. This still didn't make since though. Even if my rear cover is leaking...how could the fluid run down the axle case, skip my pinion seal, get on the drive shaft, and sling the fluid up to a foot in front of the rear axle...all this while I'm driving forward?

Any ideas? Even with me, and 3 other technicians, we couldn't figure this out. Any help would be greatly appreciated.