After some thinking and discussing, I decided that the first problem to tackle is the clutch/transmission issue. I did a cursory check of the timing and it seems okay, compression seems okay, and it looks/smells like the engine is running really rich, so it could be an out-of-whack sensor. To more thoroughly test that, though, the car should be mobile, and I know there’s a bunch of noise coming from the transmission bellhousing, so that’s the first place to look.
I’m getting fairly good at this, so after not a lot of time, I had the transmission out of the car to take a look. Incidentally, the longest part of the process was in trying to find some way to support the engine. My solution was to put the front motor mount back on and only bolt it to the engine, not the transmission. I also discovered that the bobble strut snapped, so I’m going to need to do something about that, but no big rush.
Once I had the transmission down, this is what I saw:
Oops. Apparently, all that noise was caused by this bolt floating around in the bellhousing.
More pictures are in the Turdbo Neon Build Gallery.
Once I had confirmation that the clutch was, indeed, destroyed for the most part, I ordered a new modular clutch and throwout bearing for a 2003 Stratus 2.7. It’s supposed to bolt right in, but have a bit more holding power than the Neon or the PT clutch. I also took a trip to Besslers and found the singular 5spd Neon they had in the lot. Fortunately, the clutch cable was still there, but it was a four-lug ’95 car, so it’s probably the oldest clutch cable that I could possibly get. That said, it seems in better shape than the one that is in the car right now.
So now, I have a couple tasks that I can do while I wait for the clutch to arrive:
- Source or build a new solid bobble
- Clean the oil that sprayed all over the engine bay when the breather filter fell off
- Swap the clutch cable
- Work on measuring/building a new post-turbo charge pipe
- Grind down the shifter attachment pin some more so the Booger Bushing stays in place