Cool. One caveat on brakes: be careful when you place the tire/rim back on the front wheel studs. If you approach the studs at the wrong angle you risk the chance of the edge of the rim denting the mild steel brake line that serves as the crossover from one half of the caliper (at the bottom), to other half. That stupid little steel line is not serviced as a separate part.

Funny story from back in the day: Our home base was located down in Central Florida - just as hot as Houston, when we were building this project car. It always ran hot in traffic when it was new - into the yellow line portion of the gauge which is around 230 degrees. We told Team Viper about the problems in hot weather traffic. They eventually came up with a fix for the problem...they removed the yellow portion of the gauge face on subsequent models so it only showed red around 250. ;-p

My fix when racing was to pull the A/C compressor lead off the compressor. This way when I turned on the A/C it would activate the electric fan immediately but not the compressor itself - kind of like a manual/override fan switch.

In continuing my quest for the perfect Viper....well...not really, but since it's Hurricaning out there, I might as well update a few threads!:thumbsdown:

Up on jack stands it goes for a brake redo and a cleaning up of the front and rear suspension is in order as well. Of course, factory markings present as well as parts tags will remain. :burnout: The last worn out parts to replace are the sway bar end links front and back too. Brakes on the Gen II Vipers are...well....not exactly up to today's standards on the Gen Vs or even the later Gen IIIs. After exploring a bunch of options and realizing this thing will never see a track day (OK, maybe one day for fun:headbang:), I decided that slotted rotors with Hawk pads would be just fine. Of course, what's a B&W GTS need to really look good!? Simple....shiney red calipers which always make the car go faster!:wink:

Look at how puny those back calipers are! Like leftover Neon calipers. I'm going to make a cover eventually to go over that (Tom at Tom's Big Brakes used to, but they no longer exist:frown:) just for asthetic purposes so I can have a Viper logo on the rear ones too. Just a brake bleed away from being back on the road! Well, that and a week of no rain!:thumbsdown:

Cheers:beers:
Dave

They could very well be Neon brake calipers as the overwhelming majority of parts on the Gen 1 cars were sourced from existing parts throughout the Chrysler corporation. You like the 6-lug wheel hubs that came from a 1500 pickup truck?

I just had some expensive fun with my snake-car. I washed the car and then turned on the wipers for the first time in about 24 years. They promptly did their little "I Dream Of Jeanie" dance and then jammed together in the middle of the windshield. The Viper uses two separate electric motors - one for each wiper blade. They are synched through a series of sensors inside the motors. One worked fine, the other would start and stop and then get caught in the path of the passenger side blade. I then tested each by unplugging them and running power to the correct terminal on each motor. They both worked fine when separated.

Here is the important thing to remember for when yours start going out. The bad wiper motor is NOT the one that is stopping. The bad motor is the one that appears to be working fine.

It seems that the sensors in the one that is working fine are no longer sending the correctly timed signal to the other motor to swing - so it starts and stops awaiting the next signal that never comes. I had to order a new Mopar passenger side wiper motor which is no longer available but still stocked in some dealers (PN 4643065 at $248) and hopefully it will arrive next week. The driver's side part number is PN 4708171, in case you eventually need one or the other. These part numbers cover all the Gen 1 and Gen 2 Vipers.

My next project on the car is either the non-working Alpine cassette deck (no sound coming from the speakers) or the falling headliner in the detachable hardtop. Jeez, it's like a typical old car already...and it's only been 24 years.

Yep..... guys at my shop were asking me why I've done so much to the car since it's new? Well... it's new to me but not NEW new, and as such, needs everything a car from 1997 needs except it's a Viper and not a Honda. I've replaced a bunch of weather stripping [and get those while you can! ] that was worn out too, and just freshening up a bunch of tired parts. After the brakes, I'll be diving into the interior upholstery upgrade.

One guy at the shop wants the car in the worst way. Let the negotiations start! But honestly, this car is such an icon I have to enjoy it for a little while longer before it goes to another caretaker. So much fun!

Dave

Dave, I love the upgrades on the car. I can't believe how tiny the original calipers are. Apparently it worked for the engineers. Anyway, I know it will be a better car when done with some tasteful upgrades.

Good work.

The brakes worked really well when we raced ours, back in the day. Sebring was our home track and it was quite fun going from 145 mph on the short straight into the 20 mph hair pin turn (which has since been removed and made into a much more gentler transition without a runoff escape route that pointed you directly into a large billboard or a chain link fence. :-)

From my racing experience with the Gen 1 suspension in my 93 I found that it was well balanced in the braking department. I think the best 60 to 0 braking distance we measured was 105 feet, running on the first design BFG R-1 racing tires. No fading, though it would boil the brake fluid frequently on long runs and I had to go with a really expensive high temp fluid and added Porsche brake duct flaps attached to the lower control arms to direct the air toward the calipers.

You may find that if you enlarge the rear brakes you may also have to go to bigger front brakes as well as the braking balance may be upset.

Here's a shot of the Porsche brake flaps hose clamped to the lower control arms. (please ignore the rusty rotors from sitting). We also had to wrap the ball joints and tie rod ends in heat barrier material as the brake rotor heat would boil the grease right out of the ball joints...right toward the brake rotors. Now THAT made for an exciting time. You can also see on the bottom of the caliper where I added some orange RTV in a glob as a cushion to prevent that transfer tube from getting dented during wheel changes. The car also had a set of custom coil-over shocks that Koni made for us with adjustable spring seats for altering the ride height.

Brakes are done and what an improvement! The car runs cool due to the radiator recore and addtional fans....not to mention it's not 1,000 Degrees outside!!!:thumbsdown:

Been driving it all week. Ran next to a Gen V on the road which was prettty sweet. It's rare to see a Viper on the road, so this was a treat. Stopped at the local airport to jump in my buddy's Cessna 310Q, and took a few photos. The car is a blast!!!

Cheers:beers:

Oh...might of had to get a few pics by the Bee too.....:naughty:

Glad you're enjoying the snake-car. Took mine out yesterday for the second time this year. I got the new wiper motor in and they now work properly again. Also, I charged the battery fully with a battery tender for a couple days and now the stereo miraculously works again! Who knows: maybe it was a voltage issue with the factory amplifiers in the trunk? Now if I could get the drooping headliner to also repair itself THAT would truly be a miracle.

The viper..

:rolleyes: :D


https://media.tenor.com/images/77b4c...bd4c/tenor.gif

Hahaha!! I was looking forward to a "Darrell" comment!!!:biggthumpup:

Cheers

Dave