1995 E320 Wagon - Leaky tranny

[85 DSEL]

Well, so far this car has been a very good one since purchasing several years ago. It does have the original big ticket items (head gasket and wire harness) that I am aware will raise their ugly heads at some point in the future! For now we have enjoyed owning this fine automobile. So why am I here? Well...

Recently I've been noticing transmission fluid spots on my driveway which is sloped, but hadn't noticed anything when parked in the garage. What I assumed was that there was a small leak that was dripping down onto the underbelly pan/tray then when parked on the sloped dw it ran off the tray. That may well be what was happening, however, the leak is getting bigger so much so that it has made a pretty large wet spot on a new piece of cardboard I put down under it just a few days ago.

I have it scheduled to visit the dealer service department in a couple days to get a diagnosis but thought I might throw it out here to see if anybody had any ideas on what might be the culprit...of course, I'm praying it is something 'simple (read: inexpensive!)