Turdbo Neon

Short update:  The transmission is bolted to the motor and the starter is re-installed.  There are a couple bolts left to put in and the driveplate needs to be bolted to the clutch package, but the hard part is completed.

Last night, I went ahead and get started with the biggest part of re-assembly:  Putting the  transmission in.  The first step was to get the new axle seals installed.  The document that I found on the web took great pains to mention how hard it was to pry out the axle seals.  They lied.  I used a 24″ tire iron and easily removed both seals without the prybar touching the case of the transmission.  Putting the new seals in was easy — I used the iron pipe-based Honda Odyssey crank-holding tool that I built as a seal driver.  Come to think of it, though, I thought I bought a seal driver set at one point, hmm.  Anyway, the hard part was getting the transmission in.  I tried a couple times and then decided to go to bed.  I’m thinking that I might build a wooden cradle to sit on top of the tranny jack to hold the transmission at the right angle, because the jack I have is designed for longitudinal-mounted transmissions, not transverse transaxles.

The bobble relocation brackets arrived and they were raw steel, so I did this to them:

I also took the front and side engine mounts from the rally car and filled them with WindoWeld:

and

I got the hoist:

And it wasn’t until after I had assembled the whole thing by myself that I saw this warning sticker:

They lie.

Anyway, I used some chain around the exhaust manifold to pull the engine forward and then looped the chain around the exhaust and intake runners to life the engine up and maneuver it into place.  To provide some support and to keep the motor from moving, I got the side engine mount into place:

With the motor held up with a block of wood underneath and the engine hoist above, I felt more comfortable getting in there and starting to prepare the car for re-assembly.  The Forge BOV is installed now, however, without applying all the much force, I was able to completely strip out the bolt hole, so I’m going to get that fixed before I get the transmission in place.  I also need to remove the power steering unit from the K-member so that I can bolt the bobble re-lo bracket into place.  I do not have a transmission mount that is salvagable, and it appears that the junkyard is only going to charge about 8 bucks after taxes, so I think I’ll go get one from the yard and then fill it at home.

Any day now, I expect that my Fat Tire Bicycles bobble strut relocation bracket will arrive so that I can begin putting the transmission back in.  In the meantime, I’ve started cleaning and polishing the transmission, since it was pretty nasty-looking.  I also had a jack stand slip, causing the motor mount to slide apart, leaving the motor at a terrible angle, so I’m going to need to get an engine hoist to try to reposition it, more than likely — although the transmission jack just might work for that job, the more I think about it.

A milestone has been reached:  Last night I removed the automatic transmission from Dirty.  It took quite a bit of wiggling, since the tripod housing was still stuck in the transaxle, but after about 45 minutes, I was able to bust it loose from the K-member, engine, and core support.  I also found that as soon as I took the bolts out, all the rubber in the transmission mount just disintegrated.  So that’s shot.

Now that the transmission is out, I can do some of the things that I lacked space for:

• replace the BOV
• Clean up the engine bay
• Find the marker light wiring
• Re-attach the exhaust to the downpipe
• Hook up the heater hoses to the heater box

Other prep work I need to do:

• Get and install the bobble relocate bracket
• Get and replace the axle seals
• Get new sway bar end links and bushings
• Figure out something to do about the ball joint boots
• Get new tie rod boots
• Get new cotter pins
• Get replacement motor mounts (the ones from the SOHC should work) and fill them
• Clean up the transmission

Then I’ll be ready to attach the 5spd to the motor and put everything back together.

I started the evening by pulling the bobble strut and bracket off of the parts car tonight, and I think that’s the last part that I’m going to need from it for the transmission job. I spent a good deal of time putting that car on some shorter jack stands and collecting and organizing all the tools.  With that done, I got Dirty in the air and went to work.

The front end is torn apart now, and the half shafts have been removed from the transmission.  I left it to drain overnight with the next planned steps being to remove all the ancillary connections from the transmission before unbolting it and removing it from the car.

Interestingly, the driver side axle came apart on me when I went to remove it.  I didn’t have to apply much force to it, so I suspect I would have been in there pretty soon anyway to replace that axle.  Hopefully the ones from the donor car are in better shape.  I also found that there was a significant amount of pitting on the insides of the brake rotors, and that pitting looks deep enough that I won’t be able to machine it out.  Not sure what’s causing that, but I need to keep an eye on it.  I also trashed the boots on the tie rod ends and the ball joints, of course.  The ball joint boot appears to be dealer-only, while Suspension Restoration has the tie rod boots for $4.  I’ll also get new sway bar bushings and end links while I’m ordering parts since the existing ones were pretty worn.  It is a lot easier to manipulate the control arms with the sway bar removed, though.

Last night I pulled the clutch out and discovered that there isn’t actually any oil that I can find on the clutch, and the rear main seal doesn’t appear to be leaking.  For now, I think I’m going to go ahead and re-use the OEM LuK modular clutch.  That should get me through the GRM $2012 Challenge with some extra budget for other things.  “They” say that the clutch should be unbolted before the transmission and then come out on the input shaft, but as long as you hold the clutch assembly up, I find it easier to pull the transmission first and then bolt the clutch to the drive plate.

At this point, I’m making the list of things that I want to pull off the car, and it seems like a pretty short list:

• Radiator (always good to have a spare)
• Starter (see: Radiator)
• Coil
• Bobble strut, just in case
• The part of the wiring harness that goes to the front marker lights
• Washer fluid bottle and pump
• Window cranks (more specifically, the little clips that hold them on, but a spare would be nice, just in case)

Other than that, I can see pulling some things to try to sell off and then taking off things like the catalytic converter and the condenser to scrap separately.  Once that’s done, I’ll see if I can dig up two more donut spares and then drag the car to the scrapyard and see what I can get for it.

I haven’t posted any updates in a while, but I have been getting some work accomplished.

I soldered the heater core and it seems to be holding pressure, so hopefully that won’t leak on me.  Once that was done, I put the heater box back together, sans the AC evaporator, and installed it in Dirty.  The crashbar went in, as did the pedals, dash, shifter, and console.  I also re-did the Megasquirt mounting, deciding to install it where the glove box would ordinarily be, with the ignition module tucked behind the dash.  All the wiring should be hooked up properly now, with the original combo switches behind the steering wheel.  I’m not sure what happened to the wiring harness in Dirty (I know I did it, but I can’t figure out why or where I would have put the connectors), so I snipped the connectors off the dash harness on Stinky and soldered them onto Dirty’s harness.  The only non-functional component at this point should be the horn, and that will be easy enough to fix.

I was also able to sell off a couple bits from Stinky, but in the process I discovered that both fenders are pretty well useless due to rust.

The transmission has been removed from Stinky and needs to be cleaned up.  I’m going to replace the axle seals, drain and replace the transmission oil, and clean up the housing as best as I can before I start taking out the autotragic from Dirty.  There is a fair amount of oil on the clutch from a leaking rear main seal, so I’m going to pull the clutch, clean it, and then examine it before I decide if I’m going to re-use it or replace it.  Once that decision is made, I’ll go ahead and jack up Dirty, pull the axles, drop the transmission, replace the rear main seal (since I’m there anyway), and then install the clutch and transmission.

While the transmission is out, I’m going to replace the blow off valve with the Forge one that I bought off neons.org.  With the new transmission in place, I’m going to replace the injectors with some that I got in the same deal, and then I’ll need to hook up the heater hoses, pressure-test the intake pipes, get a new battery, and it will be ready for its first test drive.  If that’s at least moderately successful, I’ll get the mirrors on, double-check the lights, fix the horn, and see about getting it tagged.

Basically, I’m running out of room to store the parts that I want to eventually install into Dirty, so I decided that it was time to go ahead and start installing things, like the dash and such.  I started with this:

I was already sort of using the car for storage before I started

I removed the seats, pulled out the wheel, dash, and dash supports to be left with this:

Cleaned out, dash and seats removed

After a can of Rustoleum gloss black, it looked like this:

This took an entire can of Rustoleum

Next steps are to take the under-dash crash bar from Stinky outside today and spray it black as well.  Then I need to put the dash in Dirty, and spray the back half of the interior.  I’m not sure what the timing will be on that, though, because I don’t want to put any of the dash back in until I have the heater core sorted out.

The deconstruction of Stinky continues.  I’ve got the entire dash and dash supports out, the shifter and pedal assemblies are removed, the console is out, and the heater core is gone.  I’ve also already sold the rear deck carpet and the gauge cluster.  I got the headlight and turn signal assemblies installed on Dirty, and I’ve been planning out what I’m going to do for the interior.

I found that something had been living in the heater core, so I took it apart to remove all the stuff that was jammed down into the blower motor.  I took out the A/C evaporator, since the car won’t have A/C, and figured I might as well open up the other side of the core to make sure there was nothing nasty over there.  Good thing, too, because I discovered that the heater core has a burst copper pipe.  It looks very much like the pipe froze, bubbled, and burst, and judging by the icky coolant in the car, there probably wasn’t much, if any, antifreeze.  My guess is that the car got so nasty-smelling because the carpet was getting a steady diet of nasty water, leading to plenty of mildew in the passenger foot well.