I've owned a DOHC Neon ACR and an RX7. The Neon made me understand where many of the negative stereotypes about American cars come from. I hope that you have better luck with yours.
I've owned a DOHC Neon ACR and an RX7. The Neon made me understand where many of the negative stereotypes about American cars come from. I hope that you have better luck with yours.
Yeah, it's tough to find them in decent condition. As for me, did I mention the bad paint? Time to learn how to paint a car...
rotard wrote: I've owned a DOHC Neon ACR and an RX7. The Neon made me understand where many of the negative stereotypes about American cars come from. I hope that you have better luck with yours.
How so?
They were incredibly cheap cars when new, and were treated as disposable. The headgasket, wiper motors, heater core and a bunch of other stuff all went out about a week after I bought it. Having your wipers and defroster suddenly not work in the pouring rain sucks. I'm sure that the previous owner, someone from this board, didn't know. It was faster than my RX7, but not nearly as rewarding to drive (to me.) It ended up just sitting there, so I sold it. Some guy from Neons.org drove to Columbia, SC from Chicago with his son just to pick it up. They really wanted a NYG ACR with a tan interior.
I'm sure that mine was just a poor example. The ACR is probably one of the reasons why I finally broke down and bought a much newer car.
Right behind Lapis Blue white is the worst color to have paint failure (Ive defended neon reliability forever and just used the phrase paint failure lol)
Make sure to have the car re-sealed and primed when you paint to prevent the problem from reoccurring.
The speedometer not working is more likely due to a cluster problem than a speed sensor. If you need any parts/advice my email is bwarner@boneyardracing.net I'll do whatever I can to help a new neon owner out!
Right behind Lapis Blue white is the worst color to have paint failure (Ive defended neon reliability forever and just used the phrase paint failure lol)
Make sure to have the car re-sealed and primed when you paint to prevent the problem from reoccurring.
The speedometer not working is more likely due to a cluster problem than a speed sensor. If you need any parts/advice my email is bwarner@boneyardracing.net I'll do whatever I can to help a new neon owner out!
I'd thought about that too, I'd read that there were issues with the soldered connections in the instrument cluster. My wife's old ZX2 had the same issues and a new VSS fixed it, I just defaulted to that solution here too...
Ha, I'll definitely be bugging you for advice now...
Congrats on the purchase. I was calling for RX7 but I am excited to hear about the ACR. They were on my list of "Will own someday" but I may just have to live vicariously through your experiences.
and ill also chime for ACR advise if you need it. ive gotten pretty good due to mine.
and i almost guarentee that the o2 sensor is a cracked exhaust manifold, or the lower bolts missing.
have you done the key dance to confirm the o2 code?
Ha, I'm afraid I'm not familiar with the key dance. I tried to clear the code out yesterday and it immediately came back, so I guess I'm gonna have to actually fix something before I can get the emissions done. I'm about to put a jack under the car now to check for leaks, is there any particular place the manifold likes to crack?
up at the top of the manifold, between number 2 and three. youll have to pull the air box and heat shield to see it.
googkle neon key dance. it will provide very simple diagnostics through flashing the CEL.
and solder the cluster now. you will thank me.
also, join www.neons.org. will be very helpful. especially the FAQ's.
I can just poke my head under the car and see that two exhaust manifold bolts escaped, I'll pull the heat shield and check for cracks as well. And I've already pulled the CEL code (P0140), but I'll try the key dance too for the hell of it.
I'm not having issues with the speedo working intermittently or jumping, it just flat-out doesn't move. I wouldn't think a bad connection in the speedo would cause the odometer and trip meter to stop working as well. I'll go ahead and get the cluster fixed up, but I may pick up a VSS as well just to be sure...
I've lurked around neons.org off and on for a few years now and finally signed up about a week ago. Definitely a lot of good info there that I haven't read through yet.
Thanks for the tips guys!
Key dance:
On-off-on-off-on the CEL will blink with the number.
3 blinks pause 3 blinks= 33
More detailed description and list of codes:
http://forums.neons.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=256874
Yep, I found that. Mine gave me 12, 21, and 42... 12 doesn't really matter, 21 correlated to the P0140 code, and 42 is something with the fuel pump or level sensor. The OBDII is only throwing the one code though, so I'm hoping they're related and that plugging in those missing exhaust manifold bolts will remedy everything...
Did you say there is an exhaust leak?
The manifold bolts are a good start. While you're back there I would change the exhaust gasket between the cat and manifold, they are ceramic and tend to crack and fall away. If the bolts are off probably means someone tried to take the manifold off which will ruin the ceramic gasket.
You want a flex head gear wrench 10mm and 13mm for this project
Cylinder 1 is on the left closest to the cam gears look between the runners in the exhaust manifold for cracks if you find them a good header wakes the DOHC up in a great way sounds cool too
Thanks for the info! Yeah I've been looking around for a header, but right now I just need to get the CEL gone so I can pass emissions. Hopefully plugging up that exhaust leak will work. After that I'll address all the other random issues (speedo, clutch, struts, paint, etc.), and then I can focus on the fun stuff.
My neighbor had an RX7 and it got about 18 mpg and lost compression at like 180k miles so he gave it away, it was in nice shape too. My dad bought a neon ACR new, and put 365k miles on it until part of a broken clutch cable locked up the engine (which we didnt figure out until after buying a used engine and pulling the old one). Now it runs fine again, but we just have to decide whether to throw money or parts at it to get it to pass smog, but neither way is likely to be cheap.
Solder on the instrument cluster looks good, but I'll redo it just to be sure. There are all kinds of bolts missing off the exhaust manifold (at least 3), so I'm not sure how the manifold even stayed on... Additionally, the cause of my CEL is the O2 sensor wires (on the body side) which look like some small animal munched on them. Back to work...
all mine were gone due to the front motor mount being broken. motor rocks, stresses the studs/bolts, snap.
i wouldnt be suprised if theres chuncks of bolts and stripped holes.
and it can look good on the solder, and still be bad. mine was.
and look at my thread in the build forum. NONE of the issues other than the bad wheel bearing were mentioned to me.
michael
Yeah, I'm looking to your build for inspiration... You've gotten that car a long way from where it started. My problem is, all things considered, I probably paid a little too much for what I got.
And yeah, it looks like the bolt heads broke off... So I guess I'll be pulling the motor to extract those. As long as I'm doing that I may as well attend to the multitude of oil leaks and throw a new clutch on.
RX7 because it will be easier to get a ford 302 chambered.
I maybe need to move this to the Builds and Projects forum, though it's sure to be the least exciting build this board has ever seen...
Edit: Done
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