Usually removing an engine involves pulling lots and lots of electrical connections, hoses of every size shape and description, battery trays, and various engine bay parts. Not so in my case. Thanks to the previous owners random disassembly methods, most of the work was already done for me. Mind you, it wasn't done right, and many of the parts that were removed are nowhere to be found. Many of the bolts and fasteners that formerly held all the missing parts on were found in several piles scattered around the engine bay. I pretty much had no choice but to gather them all up, organize them by size and style, and put 'em in a box - maybe as I put things back together, I'll figure out where most of them go.
I had been chipping away at the car throughout the previous week, removing the drive shafts, engine wiring harness, intake manifold and various other small parts. As with all things that the previous owner worked on, there were a few amusing discoveries along the way. This time it was the shifter cables. On both ends of the shifter assembly, Neons use little rubber grommets that snap onto shift linkages. Inside the car, the bushings are fairly protected and live long happy lives. On the transmission end however, conditions are tougher - heat, cold, vibration, and the elements all conspire to bring about a swift end to these poor little bushings. It's a common problem that's normally fixed with a trip to the local Dodge dealer. But that clearly wasn't an option for Whitey's resourceful previous owner. Nope, why fix something properly if you can do it completely, and utterly ass-backwards? Apparently an enormous gob of epoxy will do just fine in place of the proper parts....
In the above shot, the bushing on the right is completely gutted - missing it's entire center portion, but was left to perform it's duties as best it could. The one on the left however, was apparently so bad that it had to be addressed. A big old glob of epoxy was smooshed into the bushing and slathered, and smoothed all over the entire repair - much like an ugly little cake.
I had to chip the stuff off just to get down to the main bushing and end link. I can't figure this guy out - the proper fix for this, even using upgraded parts is maybe $25. Go figure...
With the shady shift linkages out and most of the other fiddly work done, all that was left was to disconnect the exhaust and unbolt the motor mounts, and yank the damn thing out. I borrowed a 2 ton capacity shop crane or "cherry picker" from one of the other Spec Neon racers and it made quick work of lifting the relatively light (maybe 400 lbs?) Neon engine/transmission combo out.
And with that, we were done.
So, the engine was out, but the 'new' engine wasn't ready to go back in yet. Ever curious, we decided to take a peek inside this engine and see what really went wrong with it. Blown head gasket was my guess. That'll be coming up in the next post.
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