NJ Steves Pit Viper Revival

[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.

[Lynn]

I understand the reasoning behind that style of slave cyl. I just don't think the pros outweigh the cons. I needed to change the clutch slave on an old BMW last week. Took about 10 minutes.

Having to pull the trans is a huge pain in the butt on many cars.

[njsteve]

It's been a crazy few days. I have ordered and reordered the slave cylinder four times now. It seems that every time I order what is listed as "in stock and ready to ship" it turns out to be a "we will charge your card and then look and see if our suppliers have it" scenario. That goes for Amazon, Ebay, Rockauto, Advance Auto...Still waiting on refunds from three of them after they cancelled my orders unilaterally.

I supposedly have the throwout bearing itself due for delivery tomorrow from rockauto but I ran into all sorts of issues getting a slave cylinder. Finally I reached out to a Viper parts specialist who recently commented on a posting on one of the Viper enthusiast websites that he sponsors. He said he had a couple of the original Mopar complete slave cylinder assemblies with bearing. (Chrysler current PN5037357 & original PN4642581) He pretty much bought up the last few units that were still available before they went obsolete years ago from Dodge. So he is shipping me the real deal factory part. It cost around $250 (bearing included) delivered.

The funny thing about the Viper parts guy (Bill Brobst) http://www.viperpartsrack.com/index....te=common/home is that I met him at the First Viper Owner's invitational back in 1994. My newly-wedded wife and I went to this event in order to celebrate our first wedding anniversary. (my idea of coure). She even got a "good sport" award for attending from Dodge management. The award still hangs in the garage. :-)

Anyway, Bill said in his email "It was actually HER that I remembered first!!"

I had to laugh at that comment. And then he sent me a link to the original Dodge video that they did to document the crazy event. The wife, the car, and I are featured in several sections of the video including at 32:20, 35:04 and 36:26.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGJk...vikPerformance

[njsteve]

The new slave cylinder and throwout bearing arrived yesterday. I was taking a close look at the original 1992 vintage slave and bearing and saw something interesting. See if you see what I see. :-)

[njsteve]

And the shiny, NOS Mopar slave and bearing. No manufacturer logo on the plastic bearing carrier.

[njsteve]

Well it took some time by myself but I managed to get the slave cylinder, throwout bearing, and aftermarket 48-inch bleeder relocation hose installed. It took several hours to get the transmission back in place, manhandling it on my own, but by 6:30 PM it was bolted back up and the clutch system was fully bled with the help of my Award-Winning Wife. Tomorrow the rest of the hardware gets bolted back up and it will be time for a test drive.

And here's her award from 1994:

[njsteve]

I got to use some of my old parts that were hidden in the basement. I remembered having a few of these but this was the last package from back in the day. Look at the date on the package. May, 1992

[njsteve]

And just like the children's book, "If you Give A Mouse A Cookie", I had to do something else to the car since it was up on jackstands. I decided to flush and refill the cooolant. I had replaced it in 2003 or so, but the car didn't go anywhere - maybe 200 miles since then? So I let everything drain from the radiator petcock over night. It was pristine and green though only tested to be about -10 degrees for antifreeze effectiveness on the hydrometer. I got 15-1/2 quarts out in to the catch basin. I am now in my second day of attempting to burp the system of all the excess air. I only got around 14 quarts back in. I have been refilling it via the heater core valve line. (It's a 93, remember?) But I still had a bunch of air in the system on startup and the gauge went to about 210 before I shut it off. No heat out of the heater core. I let it cool down and the then was able to put another half a quart in. I started it and it hung around 195. (Still too hot for this car). The next day I used a tall funnel (about 18' tall, so the coolant going in was higher than any portion of the cooling system.

Those crazy heater core lines are not the highest point in the cooling system. The feed and return hoses drop down behind the engine and then rise up higher then the heater core inlets in order to reach the thermostat housing at the back of the block. I even tried lowering the back of the car to ground level in order to get the radiator higher. Not sufficient. I was able to get more coolant in today for a total of around 15-1/4 quarts. (Capacaity is 16 quarts). At least now the heater works and I can see the heat readings on my infrared heat gun. I test drove it and the temp was around 190 and I could see the needle fluctuate to 180 when the thermostat would open. There is still air in the upper radiator hose and you can hear it when you squeeze. I will let it cool down and try to add more tomorrow.

I do remember twenty years ago doing this and it also took several tries over several days to get it burped of all the air.

[njsteve]

Another day, another burp-athon-apalooza-fest of the V-baby. I got another quart in today! Took almost 30 minutes using the measuring cup filled with around 1/8th cup of coolant at a time. First, I popped the radiator cap off, and topped it off with around a half cup til it was at the top. Then I put the cap back on and disconnected the heater hose line and rotated it upwards. I also added a four-inch section of heater hose to the heater core nipple so I could see the level rise and fall without it just dribbling out. With the little funnel, I just trickled in an 1/8 cup at a time into the heater hose, watching it slowly drain down the funnel, until I went through an entire gallon of 50/50 mix. I reconnected everything and started her up again. Once warmed up the gauge hung around the 185 zone after a drive around the block.

BTW, this is one of the early 92/93s that still had the yellow zone on the gauge. It brings back such entertaining memories of back in the day driving the car in Florida heat with the gauge hovering at the right side in the yellow/red zone. After numerous complaints by southern Viper owners, Dodge sent out a very detailed TSB that essentially said "Ignore the yellow mark on the gauge. Your car isnt really running hot, You're imagining this, Pay no attention to the ViperTech behind the curtain with the infrared heat gun that indicates your radiator is running at 225 degrees..." yada-yada

Dodge in their infinite wisdom removed the yellow marking on the gauge for 1994 (and upgraded the radiator...and electric fans...and shroud...and added more coolant capacity...but that's just a coincidence)