Dipstick Drama!

So the dipstick on my transmission in the '71 Nova has leaked since put the TH400 in it a couple years ago. So I've single-handedly been driving up oil prices by purchasing massive amounts of tranny fluid to keep it topped off and out of harms way via overheating. This weekend I took on the task of changing what I thought was a cracked O-ring. Sounds simple, but it requires dropping the trans to get the dipstick tube out because of the nice curve it has. Got everything down and out quickly on Saturday and went to purchase the new tube. After hours of trying to finagle the new tube in I discovered that I must completely take the trans out, not just lower it. Then I discovered that the tube didn't fit by snapping it in two while trying to force it into trans. Broken $20 tube and no fix..... So I grabbed a new O-ring and put it on the old tube to throw it back in......I put it in, tipped the trans. sideways to see if it leaked and discovered that the old tube had a nice crack in it. So it had been leaking from a crack not from the O-ring. Well, I sulked around for a bit on the verge of crying and it dawned on me that I had 2 other different tranny's in the garage. I found the tube for one of them and it happened to be an exact match, although not nearly as beautiful, it is functional.........now to get it all back together again.....Lets go Humpty Dumpty.