Hi Bob,
My oil exit path was around a bolt head. Yours might have been through the gear case to impeller chamber seal. Were you trying to maintain the oil level up to the bottom of the fill hole? Does your new nose cone have the sealed bearings?
Spinning impeller gears make quite a mist generator. (From the mouth of John Conchie.)
I am considering buying a sealed bearing nose cone assembly with the smaller pulley.
Roy