NJ Steves Pit Viper Revival

[Burd]

Steve, I got something for you, I did the auto shows, I got a die cast at press in 1996, it’s blue w/ white stripes. Looks just like your Viper. It’s a Racing Champions die cast, hot wheels size, but it says Chrysler Financial on it, Not sold in stores. If you want it it yours. Looking to give it to a Viper guy. It comes with some kind matching badge too. Throw me the ship or buy me a beer lol. Leme know.

[muscle_collector]

ive got the reverse color combo of yours. Ive never been able to really decide I like it. it is so different than any other car I have. weird how I feel like im sitting sideways in the drivers seat. crazy power like driving on ice. but it sure does get the looks going down the road.

just realized I posted on this thread I meant to post on your current one.

[njsteve]

Originally Posted by Burd

Steve, I got something for you, I did the auto shows, I got a die cast at press in 1996, it’s blue w/ white stripes. Looks just like your Viper. It’s a Racing Champions die cast, hot wheels size, but it says Chrysler Financial on it, Not sold in stores. If you want it it yours. Looking to give it to a Viper guy. It comes with some kind matching badge too. Throw me the ship or buy me a beer lol. Leme know.

I'll take it! I'll PM you.

[njsteve]

Trying to repost some of the original photos that fodobucket lost.

[njsteve]

No good deed goes unpunished!

I have been driving the old viper to the gym every morning for the past couple weeks (when the weather was good) just to use up the 24 gallons of two year old gas in the tank. I was down to half a tank after going 90 miles so far. (7 mpg?)

Last week my son finally decided to ask me to teach him how to drive a manual transmission. Since he has eyes on getting this vehicle one day he better know how to drive it. We took it around the neighborhood and he didn't do half bad. The funny thing about using this car to teach manual transmissionship (if that's a word?) is that it has soooo much torque, you can't really stall it out by letting the clutch up too abruptly. So he did reasonably well for the mile he drove it.

Then comes this morning when I was going to go and fill her up with 93 premium after siphoning out the old gas/Stabil mix. I went to push in the clutch and it felt very low and ineffective. And it wouldn't go in to gear with the car running.

So I did a little research and it is either one of two things: The clutch master cylinder on the firewall...or the throwout bearing slave cylinder in the bellhousing. One is a half hour job and the other is a 8 hour job.

I opened the master cylinder filler cap and it was empty of fluid inside. I added some and could see it took a while to fill so it must have gone somewhere. No puddles under car anywhere. I tried bleeding the system but it didn't get any better.

I ordered both parts from amazon and we will see in week which one it was. I'm doing the master cylinder first since it only took a few minutes to get it out of the car although I did have to grind down an old 5/8" open end wrench to make the tool to release the fluid coupling at the bellhousing.

I did perform an autopsy on the old clutch master cylinder and a lot of black liquid came out (versus the clear fluid that came out of the bellhousing bleeder screw.) So maybe it is just the master cylinder that pooped out. But you know how my luck goes.

Fingers crossed!

[njsteve]

The new clutch cylinder arrived yesterday from rockauto and I installed it today with a little help from the wife sitting in the driver's seat after she got home from work. YAY! That was the problem. So now I can return the throwout bearing slave assembly to amazon when it arrives.

And if you're wondering what that little plastic bottle zip-tied to the footwell-box near the clutch cylinder is, it's a homemade catch can for the power steering pump vent. Dodge in their infinite wisdom had a cap on top of the power steering pump that had a vented nipple pointing straight up. This made for interesting times when the car was driven in anger and the power steering fluid heated up, which then would geyser upwards and then onto the headers and left front brake assembly. So I just attached a length of fuel line and routed it to that catch can. Problem solved!

[njsteve]

Oh well, so much for hoping the leak was that simple...I checked under the car today and there's a puddle of fresh brake fluid under the bellhousing leaking from the throwout bearing slave cylinder.

DOH! and I yesterday I cancelled the shipment from Amazon before arrival and now Amazon shows none available. Same with all the local parts stores.

I just spent several hours hunting down another one (LUK LSC134) slave/bearing assembly. Found it on ebay.

You can find the slave cylinder without the bearing at Rockauto but the Vipers are very finicky about the bearing installed heaight so the factory demands you install a preassembled bearing and slave assembly. Oh and did I mention the NOS Mopar bearing assembly is $390? No thanks, I'll use the LUK version which is the one the factory used anyway.

So the wait for arrival starts again.

I'll start pulling the trans out tomorrow. It least I dont have to totally remove it, I can pull it back and let it sit on the trans jack and then remove the bearing/slave assembly.

[njsteve]

Got the transmission "detached." I won't say removed because I just pulled it back far enough to get the slave cylinder and throwout bearing off the input shaft. This way the transmission is still in an aerial holding pattern that is a straight forward shot into the bellhousing.

Of course my 15 year old Harbor Freight transmission jack failed as I was about to attempt the uncoupling. Luckily the floor jack was still under the engine and was holding the entire drivetrain up at the time. I remembered it failed before when I was pulling the transmission out of Grampa's Lincoln three years ago so it was about time to run back to HF to get another one. Luckily they had it in stock with a 10% off coupon today. Too bad they dont just sell a new cylinder for these damn things.

Anyway, you can see that the slave cylinder did in fact fail which seems to be a common occurence on Vipers from what I have seen while googling the interwebs.

I figure that in 28 years of ownership (which includes 8,000 hard miles in the first 5 years and then over two decades of sitting idle), this is the first actual drivetrain component to fail. The only other parts that have gone bad are one wiper motor two years ago and the grey flocked, fuzzy dash finish that decomposes on all Gen 1 Vipers.

I used several bottles of brake clean so far to flush and wipe away the residue inside the bellhousing area. I never had a problem with the clutch and it appears that all the leakage was travelling toward the transmission and away from the clutchplate itself. When I closely examined the interior of the clutch plate it was dry and surface rusty looking with no evidence that the fluid got between the disc and the plate. I don't want to replace the clutch assembly since that's another item that the aftermarket does not seem to get right (from other googling research) with the majority of the clutch kits mistakenly including a C5 Corvette disc instead of the 24 spline Viper disc. And when they get the disc right they get the installed height wrong. One guy had to pull his transmission 4 times to get the clutch working properly and in the end gave up and used his original clutch plate and disc.