So, it's been a couple weeks since I've posted as I've been dealing with a big family trauma. A little over a week ago, my fiance's mom passed away due to Stage 4 metastatic Breast Cancer. It originated approximately 5 years ago, after a year and a half of treatment it stopped growing, about a year and a half ago the cancer scars started acting up in other organs and attacking the body again. She passed away about 5.5 months before our wedding. So, it's been a very sad time. I'm trying to be there for my fiance and her family as much as possible. Because of this, I've had no time/energy to do anything.

Today was the first time I actually got to look at the Dart and I decided to take it out for a drive. I drove it for 30 mins (22 miles) and didn't really push it hard. There was no "driving" issues that I could tell. I did get it up to 4000 RPM on two occasions and 5000 RPM on another. All 3 pulls were at about 1/4 throttle. On a side note, the Helmholtz resonators need quite a bit of time before they start working. For the first 20 minutes the drone was still there, but as the exhaust got to operating temperature, it quieted way down. I just thought that was interesting.

However, I'm pretty sure I've isolated the "gear noise." I'm pretty sure it's the throwout bearing (again). The "gear noise" was present in neutral. I got out of the car and pushed the clutch pedal down with my hand and listened under the car and the noise went away. I remember it did something similar right before my last throwout bearing burst, but last time it sounded way worse. I don't know how I feel about this. I don't think it's something I'd like to tackle on my own as I'd have to remove the entire trans and exhaust; however, due to the wedding and buying a new house, I don't really want to spend the money on a shop. Luckily, my pre-marital pastor referred me to a good shop semi-closeby.

So, that's been my life up to this point. I discussed this with my fiance. The plan was to take the Dart to Fall Fling. I'm not sure now. And if I do, it's doubtful it will have its new leaf springs and Holley Sniper installed as it's still sitting in boxes.

I just talked to the shop that was referred to me and explained to him what had happened. He didn't think it was a bad throwout bearing at all. He suspects it is low on trans fluid. That seems to be the logical thing to check first instead of pulling the transmission out and buying a $400 part. So, I'll try to do that Sunday... or whenever I have free time.

Sorry for your loss man. Been there. Sometimes some automotive therapy helps clear your head...

Yeah, my work schedule is now back to normal, so I should have more time in the week to work on the car. We'll see if I have the motivation to work on it.

Been busy between life stuff and wedding stuff but I finally got around to adding some Trans fluid to the car. It still has that noise I've been talking about but since I've been diagnosing all of the Dart's problems I've driven the car 3 times for approximately 50 miles without any indication of an issue (including 13 miles today). In a week and a half I'll take it to a shop and have them listen to it.

Sorry for your loss

I hope you can make to the Fling

Thanks. I'm trying. Everything is still up in the air.

So, I didn't end up making Fall Fling. Things are still crazy at the moment. Less than 100 days until my wedding and me and my fiance are in escrow on a very nice townhouse. So, my time is short to say the least.

Anyway, today I decided to start the Dart as it has been almost a month and a half since I did so last. Once I started it up, my engineering brain started thinking about this "noise problem." I just can't wrap my head around it being a transmission problem. So, I took it for a drive and put about 14 miles on the car. For about 25% of it, I drove it hard. I took it to redline on multiple occasions. It shifts very smoothly. I'm at about 64 miles since getting the car running and still have no problems aside from noise in neutral. All the parts have less than 1000 miles on it and I know the mechanic who installed the clutch made sure the bellhousing was aligned with the correct dowel pins.

I just did a quick google search and it seems like centerforce clutches can just rattle:

https://www.theturboforums.com/threads/noisy-tremec-t56-anyone-have-this-problem.339196/

https://www.jk-forum.com/forums/modified-jk-tech-2/centerforce-clutch-rattle-311255/

Some people on other forums are recommending that it may be a bad motor mount. My motor mounts are wonky because the guys who installed my engine installed it a little too far forward. Idk... Part of me feels like I shouldn't worry the other half says I should. Regardless, I'm going to have a mechanic look at it in the middle of December (only time I could get off).

Well, life is still pretty crazy but stuff is moving forward with regards to the wedding. A little over a week ago, my fiance and I closed escrow on our own little townhouse in North Orange County. It's a very nice place and pretty much move in ready but I want to make more modifications to the garage to have my own workspace. We're going to install LED lights, a wall-mounted folding workbench, maybe some shelving, and possibly epoxying the garage floor.

On other news, I took the Dart out to a car show on Saturday. SEMA headquarters was having a Cars & Coffee so I took my Dart there. While I was there I took my camera to shoot pictures. I want to get into automotive photography again, but get much better at it than I was before. I want to start capturing the details of cars more. So, this was a fun and perfect opportunity.

After I took pictures at the Cars & Coffee, I took the Dart to my new townhouse to make sure it fits in the garage. It does! Unfortunately, I forgot my keys to the house, so I went back home. Overall, I drove about 40 miles that day. I really didn't have any issues except it was taking a while for the car to crank, but I am going to say that's a bad battery as I really haven't driven the car very much (or at all) the past couple months and maybe start the car once every 1.5 months.

More pictures of the Dart.

Congrats on everything!

You never did say if the coffee was good though.

Thanks for sharing the pictures.

Thank you! We are pretty excited.

I don't drink coffee so I walked right past it. Lol.

No problems.

You look more shell shocked than happy......




Congrats man!

Shell shocked? Nooooo... I only forked over about 95% of my savings account.

Thank you!

Good to see the car out.

Have you thought about using a CPL when taking car pictures?

Yeah, it's not too bad. I just need to make some time to do some maintenance on it. I found out that my T56 rear seal is bad so I need to replace that. It's been leaking droplets of trans fluid onto my X-pipe.

I have not. Honestly, don't know anything about dslr besides the preset functions. I have to look into it more. But CPL filters seem relatively affordable. Maybe I'll purchase some and try them out.

Youtube can help a bunch here, to me, a DSLR isn't much better than the average point & shoot unless you start tailoring the settings to what you want.

I end up shooting in full manual, I'm okay at that, post-processing images is a different animal. It will take layering multiple exposures to get those black wheels to show some sort of features. They just soak up all of the light and you'll either end up with an over-exposed car, or under-exposed wheels trying to capture it all with only one click.

This is three images layered over each other, I've finally gotten to where the wheel detail isn't just a black blob. I should have done another CPL turn to lose the reflection on the door glass, but you can see where the CPL makes the windshield look almost perfectly clear. 'Cuda picture

Well, took half a step forward and about 5 steps back. I put the battery on the car on a battery tender to make sure I have a charge as the car has been sitting a lot this past year. Luckily, the battery was good and still had 75-100% juice left. I reinstalled the battery into the car and started the car up. It took a couple times to start it, but eventually I was able to get it going. I had the car idling for about 10 minutes and I noticed my engine started to get very noisy (lots of metallic sounds). Well, when I went to the front, water/coolant was squirting off the top of the water pump. Hopefully, I didn't damage/overheat the engine. When I checked my water temperature gauge, after I shut the car down, it read 160F.

I'm pretty bugged as I was just going to load a bunch of my tools in it and drive it to my new house this Friday so it can sit in its permanent home. Now, I can't do that, but glad this didn't happen when I was driving. All of the hoses are 2-3 years old. I think it may be this rubber plug on the water pump spout. It's cracked to hell. Anyone know of a good replacement? Hopefully not rubber.

After my wedding and honeymoon, in a week in a half, I was planning on slowly changing leaf springs and replace the rear trans seal as that's been leaking. If everything seemed good, I would slowly convert the car to EFI aiming for a driveable car by Spring Fling. That was already a pretty aggressive goal for me. I'm really hoping the engine didn't get damaged.

This car seriously hates me. Honestly, I'm pretty disheartened. Idk what I'm going to do with the car. It seems to cause me more grief than pleasure. I'll just have to pray and think about it.

Is that plug from the HELP! product line? If so, you're lucky it lasted more than a week. Their rubber products suck! May not be as pretty but a short bit of heater hose and a bolt or plug would last a lot longer.

I've been doing the same thing for 6 years now. I guess your mileage will vary.