1998 Plymouth Neon Help

[Corvette Jabo]

I have an opportunity to purchase a 1997 Plymouth Neon for my daughter for $200.00. The car has 135,000 miles and cosmetically needs a front passenger fender and hood. One issue is an oil leak, it looks like it is at rear of the engine where it meets the automatic transmission so I am assuming it is a rear main oil seal. So is it worth trying to install a new rear main oil seal or is this a nightmare from hell to do?

Any help would be appreciated.

Jabo

[Plum Crazy]

how bad is it leaking?? for 200.00 bucks, might want to leave it alone and live with just adding oil now and then. Also, being a 1st gen neon, are you sure the headgasket isnt bad???

[awsomeears]

I've been messing around with NEONS for 10 years and they are Easy Piles of SHIT to work on, for $200 I'd say buy it and put some Lucas in there and see how much it leaks after that.

How much oil are we talking when parked for a day ?

[lordairgtar]

buy it! People pay more than that for Harleys new and they leak.

[Corvette Jabo]

The car left a trail of oil up the driveway, when I turned the car off it made a 4 inch puddle.

Jabo

[Russ Jerome]

Basic hand tools and a borrowed cherry picker are all thats needed to repair, no worse than anything else on the road. Pulling the motor to do the job saves having to mess with suspension, axles ectto pull trans, this is all "assuming" its the rear main and not a hole on the block,pan ect.

[jbiscuit]

clean everything up REAL good with brake cleaner and then take it for a drive. See if you can pinpoint the leak. You don't want to replace the rear main seal if its the oil pan gasket hahaha

[Moparjim]

That sounds like a hell of an oil leak for a rear main. You need to get under there and be SURE of where its leaking from.

Rear mains typically are more of a SEEP and can be lived with, unless someones been living with this one for a long time and its gotten this bad now.

Otherwise, see the thread in the Mopar forum about the Neon in general - they actually aren't that bad of a cheap car and have only a few typical problems nothing too major and are easy and cheap to fix.

[srt4eh]

I'm pretty sure my R/T has a rear main seal leak....I'm not concerned because the engine is getting pulled out right now...lol. But honestly...yeah...clean it up and see if you can find where it's leaking. Neons are easy to work on....should be no problem. I'm assuming since it has 135k that the headgasket has been replaced with the upgraded MLS gasket.

If you're looking for a hood....I've got one at my friends house in Greenfield. Perfect condition DOHC hood. Downside is its painted baby blue...lol