This may be common knowledge but I had not been aware of it. Yesterday I had the brake fluid, transaxle fluid, and coolant changed in my 328. Normally I would do such work myself but since the car lives in a small storage garage when I'm not here in MD or in the marina parking lot when I am, I have no place here to do work myself. So I took it to Radcliffe Motorcars. http://www.rmccar.com/ When they drained the old transaxle fluid, they opened the level plug first. At least a couple of quarts came out of that hole! As you know, gear oil is supposed to be just at the bottom of the level plug...Hey, that's why it's a level plug. I couldn't figure out how it's possible to overfill since the plug is supposed to be open when you add/change the fluid. If the plug is open, it can't be overfilled because it would (should) just run out. I have never dealt with a transaxle, only with standard rear ends so having a transfer case is new to me. The mechanic explained/showed that many times people fill the transaxle and then add additional fluid to the transfer case, which ends up overfilling. The best way, and he showed me this, is to fill from the transfer case, leaving the transaxle level plug open. When oil starts to dribble out the filler plug, you put the cap back on the transfer case, wait until the oil quits dribbling from the level plug, and screw the plug back in. Made sense to me and seems much easier and more accurate than any other method. As I said, this may be common knowledge to all you longer-termed Ferrari owners but I thought I'd pass it along. It is apparent that whoever maintained the car previously did not fill the transfer case/transaxle in this manner since the sump was dramatically overfull which adds resistance, promotes frothing of the oil and is tough on seals!
I can understand how it happened. It must have been filled through the transfer case (which is fine) but when you do that (in my experience) it takes a good few minutes before oil starts coming out of the main transaxle case fill plug when it gets full. The way to do it is to put 4 quarts in and then wait and then add more 1/4 of a quart at a time and wait at least 5-10 minutes to allow it to settle before adding more - and have clean pot/bucket under the trans case to catch the overflow - 'spensive stuff gear oil!
Was it all gearbox oil? A leaky shifter seal between the sump and the gearbox will apparently let engine oil into the gearbox, raising the gearbox level.
Was it all gearbox oil? " I have no idea. I just assumed it was since it came out of the gearbox. I guess the only way to tell would be to check it in a year or so to see if there is more oil in the gearbox than there is now. I didn't realize there was a way for engine oil to end up in a gearbox. But I'm used to US muscle cars where everything is pretty simple!
I just performed this fix on my car not long ago. Replacing the shifter seals is a reasonably easy job with a lift, hard job without a lift (yes, I did it without a lift).
Yep, this happened to the PO of my car. Started burning oil (he thought) until it let go one day driving down the highway at 80 mph. A cloud of oil smoke out the back of the car. It was spewing out and hitting the manifold/exhaust. What he thought was just the engine burning oil was actually oil leaking into the gearbox from the shift shaft seal. Plus, it was getting harder to shift.
