Transfer case leak?

The actuator for the transfer case is wet but no drips on the floor.
Thoughts?

 

RCdadfor2
Does it smell like gear oil, which is a very distinct strong smell. What you could do is get some gunk and spray the whole area down, rinse it with water, and see if you can figure out where it is coming from. You can also use some baby power and dust the area to help look for the leak.

 

I have the same leak on my 2012 Tundra. Did you figure out what it was? I also had a lot of oil above it so it may be dripping down or air flow is pushing it up?

 

While a leak could be coming from anywhere if I had to guess that it could be one of the rods that the actuator moves. There must be a seal that's leaking. The t case should have a vent on it somewhere on the top. If it's plugged when the air inside the T case heats up and expands and will push oil out of a seal that otherwise is holding. It could look like the one on top of the rear axle. If so the top of it is a cap that should be loose. If it isn't you can usually twist it and free it up.

 

Thanks! I will check that vent. However there is oil above all of that on the bottom of the chasis/floorboard. In the top picture of this thread there is a line in the top right of the picture that comes out of the floor board. Does anyone know what that line is above the actuator about 12 inches or so? Runs up towards the transmission cooler lines I believe... It is pretty oily so wondering if that is the cause but seems to be gear oil and not red transmission fluid... Oil from the transfer case actuator wouldn’t splatter up above it would it? Don’t think there is enough oil leaking for that or enough air flow when driving.

wish I knew how to upload pictures to this from my phone. Not very easy when not on a desktop with pictures loaded to it...

 

Give it a sniff to be 100% sure what it is. That's definitely the first step!

 

The transfer case has gear oil in it. There's two "tubes" in that picture. The larger one looks like it's part of the guard for the actuator. The second looks like a cable, not a tube. Either way I doubt any oil from the transfer case or transmission goes into the cab so I doubt it's your source of the leak. The problem with a small leak is that the air flowing around it as you drive tends to blow the oil all over parts making it hard to find the actual leak.

There shouldn't be too many places for oil to come out of the T-case though. There's the rear seal for the driveshaft. This could also put oil all over the rear of the T-case. There's the fill and drain plugs. And then there's the front seal for the front driveshaft. The front DS seal should be easy since it's below the oil level in the T-case. So it should leak all the time and within a short time it'll be out of oil. The same goes for the drain plug. You may want to get some engine cleaner and spray everything down and try to clean up all the oil that's there. Check the oil level and then just keep checking it to see if you can narrow down where the oil is coming from before it gets spread over everything.