i was going to have a look in the archives but i don't really even know exactly what question to ask;
There is a lot of oil underneath, toward the back of the tranny, on the tranny-mount support bar, and the overdrive unit cover plate - also a little at the base of the filter and at the main drain plug. I know, therefore, that seals are somewhere failing but i'm just not sure where, and can't picture exactly where oil and transmission fluid should and should not be getting into.

It all started a few days ago when the clutch linkage started making a kind of scraping - or whirring i guess you could call it - noise, at even the slightest depression of the pedal. I was told that meant the throwout bearing needed to be re-greased - this makes sense, especially because the boot covering the clutch fork's entry point is ripped open. But not knowing a lot about transmissions i don't know how dire that is by itself. When i crawled underneath today to have a look at things i saw how much oil was all over - I had to add about 1/2 quart of atf, and was 1.5 quarts low on engine oil.

My question is what other seals (i know the rear main on the block is an obvious culprit) are between the engine and driveshaft? And what do they have to do with a noisy clutch? Even more disconcerting is that scraping sound was occuring without any action on the clutch pedal at all.

The car is an '86 240 with 235,000 - but it was well cared for by all owners and yes, the flame trap has been cleaned in last 2 yrs - (maybe it should be done again?) I have, as you can tell, never seen a transmission taken apart and can't get a picture of what's going on exactly. Anyone had this combo of foreboding noises and major leaks?

andrew / mpls