Right now I'm pretty glad that I decided to try to find an engine with transmission to throw into my Talon instead of just a long block. The other day I drove my Topaz home from work and parked in front of the Talon sitting dead in my driveway, I look underneath and I see a puddle under the car. I assumed my ghetto JBWeld oil seal around the oil return line from the turbo gave way, decided I would drain the oil as soon as the weather wasn't all shitty to avoid making too big of a mess.

A couple of days later I'm crawling underneath the car and discover that indeed my JBWeld seal was starting to give out, but the gigantic puddle under the car was not a result of it.  Instead the seal between the transmission and the transfer case/center diff housing gave out and the car was dumping transmission fluid everywhere.  I only had one catch can and no empty oil jugs to empty the catch can out so I opted to just drain the oil, pull the battery while I was at it, and just throw down a large cardboard box to catch and hopefully soak up the Autotrans oil.  Once I have a few more buckets for the various fluids that need to be removed I'm going to start pulling that engine and transmission out to make light work of the whole swap once the new drivetrain arrives.  There will be photos.

Bookmark: