Jerry,
Sorry for late reply. Your original description of where it's leaking is still to vague for me to visualize.
Around the shaft-Are you saying where the driveline connects to the tranny? Can it be possibly the Bell housing gaskets? Or do you really feel the leak is coming directly from the tranny itself. If the latter then how about getting a tranny gasket kit, drain the tranny and replace basically all possible gaskets without having to remove the tranny. This would require you to disconnect the driveline and ujoint. So you can at the same time replace the ball joint various gaskets.
My tranny's top plate and rear ball housing sections were leaking so while I had my rear end torn apart, I replaced as many tranny gaskets as possible short of removing the tranny.
Here's some pics of my tranny, etc. Click on the upper right arrow to review other pics of this folder.
http://community.webshots.com/photo/111968325/111973863JUYEbB
