The little bit of oil getting through has apparently ended up on the friction plate, where much of it was burned off by the slipping clutch. It is just a little oil, but the throwout rod seems to be the perfect vehicle for delivering it to the clutch hub where centrifugal force is dispersing the small drops in the perfect manner to make the clutch slip. That oil is traveling along the throwout rod and foward to the clutch. I removed the clutch actuation parts from the back of the trans and under those parts the rear seal of the input shaft is leaking and allowing gear oil to get onto the rear of the throwout rod.

BTW - guide pins are on their way to you. Guitardad wrote:Mike, my '94 RS also had a clutch pushrod that was stepped down, but no felt ring. Is there supposed to be a felt ring or other seal on the throwout rod? At first I though that might be from spline lube, but now I'm thinking it might have been gear oil from the throwout rod. And I can see some very small lines of some fluid that has radiated out from the clutch hub. This throwout rod doesn't have a felt ring or any other type of seal that I can see that would keep that gear oil from migrating down the rod and onto the clutch. However, when I wipe off the throwout rod, put it back in, and pull it out again, it has a good coating of gear oil on it. No oils seems to be comming from the rear main seal of the motor or from the input shaft to the trans. However, the pressure plate and clutch cover do have a few spots that look a like isolated spots of heat discoloration, So now I'm thinking either the spring is bad (but there doesn't appear to be anything wrong with it) of there is an oil leak. The friction plate, pressure plate, and clutch cover look pretty good.

Bmw r65 clutch thickness