It would appear that if I want to enjoy the increased performance of the 10w30 synthetic oil in my M46 I'll have to remove the overdrive and replace the gaskets between the two overdrive components. The synthetic oil is pouring out along one of those gaskets. I guess that is why the previous owner had heavy weight gear oil in the transmission.

1. I've had the rear housing off of several AW70 transmissions to replace the bushing and seal. Is this job (removing the rear half of the overdrive unit) similiar?

2. After removing the driveshaft and crossmember is it necessary to remove the shift lever to get the transmission to drop down enough to remove the back half of the overdrive?

3. I read in Bentley's about relieving the internal torsional stress. Any other tricks to removing the rear portion of the overdrive unit? Looks like five (or was it six?) 13mm nuts. Can I just seperate the two halves of the overdrive and leave the front half in place and simply remove the back half to get at the "gasket/spacer/gasket" combination that is giving me the leak?

Thanks for any insight into this new learning experience. Seems like it might just be easier to go back to heavy gear oil and wait until it needs a clutch to change the gaskets!

Randy