Rear Angel Drive (Final Drive) Oil Leak :(

(2016 SL LE, 4700 Miles)

Hey everyone, I noticed some oil on the floor, investigated and found my final drive or real angel drive leaking oil from the cover, if I wipe it off, leave it over night I get a bulg of oil as shown in the picture, its leaking very slightly, nothing major but it needs to be addressed, any advice? I am in So-Cal, Burbank, if anyone is local and can help let me know, none of the mechanics here want to touch it, dealers are too far and will be charging an arm and a leg, any help or pointers is much appreciated.

I have changed the oil to the purple gear oil, 85w-140 about 1000 miles ago, leak started recently in the last week or so.

Quote from chavey2

Well, 2 things:

1. Check all those bolts around the cover to make sure they are like a German Virgin (Guut-En-Tight).
2. Then check the input shaft area. Early ones were know to develop cracks in that area before they were re-inforced.

I have checked the bolts, they are all guutentight, where is the share area located exactly?

Quote from Kyle D

The side covers are known to leak/seep. In my opinion, it is unlikely your case is cracked but it doesn't hurt to check. You can also check the yoke seal. Those also leak sometimes. If it were me, I would check the top of the case and seal but I really think your side cover is leaking. I would drain the angle drive, remove the side cover, remove any of the factory gasket material by scraping it with a plastic razor blade, then go over it with a scotch brite pad, wipe the surface down with brake clean or alcohol, put a new thin layer of RTV on there like this https://zzperformance.com/coll…ives/products/gm-adhesive which you can find at any local napa, autozone, advance auto parts, etc, put the cover back on and tighten all the bolts down to 19ft lbs. That's not a lot so you don't have to run it home with an impact. You should easily be able to get 19ft lbs with hand tools. Hope this helps. If you have any additional questions, feel free to reach out here with a DM or for a faster response (I'm only on here a couple times a day), shoot me an email at kyle@zzperformance.com

Below is a pic of my original angle drive before we released the brace. We just use it for mock up and development at this point. But as you can see, mine split in 2 spots right on the top of the case. If you look at the angle drive where the drive shaft connects to, and picture it like a clock face, we generally see the failures between 9 and 12 o clock.

The brown seal that I have an arrow pointing at is the seal that I mentioned that can leak. Replacing that is a pretty straight forward process that is outlined in the service manual and takes about 30-45min

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Thank you so much for taking the time to respond in such detail, I really appreciate it. I will report back, planning to drain the angle drive, open it up and reseal it with the adhesive you linked, Im hoping that will fix it, thanks again I will report back within two weeks when I get some time and the heat cools off, its been a hot summer here in so-cal.

Hey everyone, just wanted to follow up, ended u being the angle drive liquid gasket sealer that needed to be re-applied, thank you KYLE D, I had to take it to the dealer as the whole angle drive has to be removed, it was out of my knowledge and ability to do the repair and the dealer charged me $600 to re apply the liquid sealer, sighting 4 hours of labor, they fixed the issue but be warned the quality and attention to detail was horrible, the place is LA Cycle sports in Inglewood, CA, my front bumper was loose, my front lips scratched in few places, overall the problem was resolved but for $600, I got my front lip scratched, they had splashed water all over it and had water marks, scratched my front bumper and the bumper is missing a screw and the one screw that was left was loose as well. Anyway just venting and sharing my experience if anyone wanted to use LA CYCLE SPORTS in Inglewood should keep this in mind.