I talked to Jim again earlier this afternoon. He met a woman in the
McD's parking lot where our adventure took place whose husband is a
mechanic; he came over and took a look at it after I left and quickly
reached the same conclusion of the input shaft seal.
Jim's holed up at the Super 8 right now. A friend with a truck is en
route from Kansas City, back to which they'll tow the poor 300D. I'm
sure he'll have more details tomorrow.
The underside and rear of the car were pretty clean with no ATF
splattering, so hopefully the failure didn't happen until he stopped,
preventing him from having pumped the trans empty and damaging it.
Actually, the underside of his car is unbelievably clean. From below
you'd never guess it grew up in Ohio. My car, also from Ohio, looks
nice on the shiny side, but the undercarriage is definately suboptimal.
Odd how that happens.
Tom
