This morning I had to drive from Boston to New Haven, Connecticut - about a 150 mile trip. Outside temperature was about 95 degrees, and humid as hell. Average speed for trip was between 75-85 mph, on somewhat hilly highway. Anyway, upon arriving in New Haven I pulled into a gas station to get a drink, as I got out the car I happened to look down at the ground. I then noticed a nice trail of transmission fluid ending up beneath my car.

As I looked under the car I was rather horrified to see transmission fluid dribbling off of the connection between the filler tube and the transmission

housing, but it soon stopped. HOLY F%#@*& S#/*! I probably just drove 2 hours with fluid pouring out of my transmission, it's gonna be junk!

For giggles I checked the fluid level expecting to find a BIG problem... but it looked fine, and the fluid didn't look or smell burnt. I then took out some wrenches and tried to snug up the two large nuts where the leak appeared to be originating. They were tight, I couldn't move them. Looked around for any other possible leak sources on transmission, didn't see anything. So I started the car, and let it idle for 10 minutes... no more leak. Wierd.

I looked to see how far down the road the drips went, and they started 20 feet from where I stopped. It hadn't leaked for long, there was only less than half a cup of fluid on the ground total.

So I did what I had to do in Conn, and came back to Boston, periodically stopping and looking beneath the car for leaks (no more leaks, fluid level correct). It shifted fine on the trip home.

My car is a 1990 245, auto trans, with 157k mi. No previous transmission problems or leaks. New trans fluid and pan gasket 6 months and 8k ago (not flushed). Kickdown cable in good condition, and adjusted to properly. Radiator is original, but works well (cools the engine fine, at least). Overall the transmision has, and still does work great. I don't seem to have caused any damage to it.

The only thing I can think of is that this wacky leak might be related to the combination 95 degree heat and high driving speeds causing abnormally high transmission and fluid temperatures...expanding fluid...greater volume...too much pressure??! I'm no engineer, or mechanic for that matter, I'm just guessing. I just don't want to have to worry about it, and would like to prevent it from happening again. Any Ideas?

Thanks in advance.