A little history on the car:
3 days ago Alex brought his '98 Neon here. The car had plenty of problems, the largest of them will become evident in the next few minutes, and generally needed quite a bit of TLC.

The transmission would kick you out of any gear at any time. 5th went first, and I could tell there were pieces of that gear travelling around the inside of the transmission by the horrible sound it was making.
I look at my tools, engine hoist, and his new transmission sitting in my driveway, and I figured before I removed the engine and transmission I would fix the shifter cables and bracket.
After a quick adjustment and re-tightening, the shifter is feeling much better, but the noise is getting worse. Occasionally the car would buck as the internals of the transmission were seizing up; the damage has been done.

What's there left to do?

I bring the car out of the corner @ 2500rpm in 1st gear and punch it.
I spin through first and powershift second, sending the diff pin through the case and the gears collapsing on eachother; there's now a 3 block long spray of transmission fluid spanning most of the road in my industrial complex. I coast the car around the block back into my driveway, only to be followed by a friend from a local shop with a box full of transmission pieces...

The aftermath:






We keep finding random pieces of transmission case.


The swap:

3AM, 32* working: Thank you, huge halogen construction lights! I love them.



The outcome:
It runs+drives great. There are a few wiring quirks he's going to come back to have me work out in a few days, but the car has never felt better.
He just bought it, and the plug wires were dead, the plugs were gapped to .50, and it needed an oil change bad.

So I cleaned the NGK plugs that were in there and gapped them to .30, replaced the plug wires, did an oil change, and a few other things. This is his project, so we removed the A/C and power steering, as neither worked properly. I bled the brakes and greased a few suspension joints, and it feels great. T
The new tranny shift like brand new. He also thought the clutch was dead, but upon removing the transmission I discovered the clutch was in great shape, so I figured the clutch cable needed adjustment. After shimming and re-adjusting the cable, It grabs like brand new.

Success.

 

No pixors.

 

There, sorry!

 

That transmission was just committing hari-keri because it didn't like being painted ricer red. It is in a better place now.

 

Lol yeah, he bought it in a state of dis-repair.
All is well now, though!

 

lol!!! i thought only honda trannys do that.

 

Saturns love to do it, too!

 

yeah it drives great and shifts a lot better

thank again for doing that i learned a lot from you can can't wait for the turbo build

BTW i got another neon on the way

 

Any day, bro. I'm always eager to teach. It was fun.
The turbo build will be beast. I'll have some toys for you in the next week or so. Where's this neon coming from? What shape's it in?

 

it's in decent shape pickin it up for 500$ with a bunch of goodies only down side i see is that it's already gutted but otherwise it's good

it's a coupe i don't know the trim level of it i think it's a Sohc as well.

So the 4 dr could be n.a and the coupe could go for boost