Hi! If it's not one thing it's another.

My 96 MY 855 T5 automatic appears to have sprung a (getting worse!) leak from the rear main crank seal.

I've never enen comtemplating gearbox removal - looks tight and heavy going - I understand this failure is fairly common....??

Any hits/tips much appreciated.

Car has only done 60k miles and always seems to have some problem - yet my wife's 855 2.5 10 valve has done 147k no problem.

Worst car out of all the 200, 700 and 900 series we've owned (though the 900 wa pretty bad). Do Ford's make them better...........?

Any way, many thanks,

Kevin

Dude that is bad news, same happened to my 2.5 20v auto (850-'94). Within a week my car was being topped up every week. Try not to drive the car until repaired as it makes a right mess underneath. As for repair, i'm a qualified mechanic and this was too big a job for me to undertake in my garage at home. It cost me £436 at the main dealer (10% discount for car over 6 years old). They had the car for two days. It is an engine and gearbox out job and unless you have done this before i would not recommend doing it yourself! My rear main seal failed at about 100,000miles and yes it is a common fault. Good luck.

It's been discussed in detail in recent posts below here and it's not exactly a DIY job for the average person with limited home garage tools. Look below for other rear seal, clutch and trans posts where this has been discussed. There's good reasons why the flat rate manual set the time at 10 hours labor and that's in a shop with air tools, hoist, trans jack, special tools and experience. It'll take you alot longer w/o all that in your garage at home.

Look through this forum and Volvospeed message board and you'll see lots of info. It's a "common" problem and unless you feel the need to abuse yourself and have access to a lift an engine support and tranny jack, a job for a shop. If it's not too bad, check your oil frequently and keep on truckin.