The clutch cable on my neon is sheared off and the pieces of linkage are somewhere down in my bell housing. Write ups Ive read suggest pulling the engine and trans completely out of the car I feel like this is excessive. Is it possible to undo the motor mounts and bell housing bolts and just scoot the motor over enough that i could get the linkage out the bottom. Also could some one post a picture of wht the linkage looks like when its all put together so ill know if i got all the parts out or not.

If someone has done a right up on this let me know the link and ill be happy to read it.

 

My wife was driving my '84 GLH when she shifted gears and the clutch cable snapped near the clutch fork, all the pieces dropped to the ground. She pulled over and stopped the car - called me. With no clutch, I just put if in 3rd gear hit the gas and the starter and drove home making all right hand turns.

But the Neon isn't a GLH. I have a magnetic oickup tool with a telescoping handle. Could you use something like that (Sears, etc. sell them) to insert through the cable cable cover/inspection port and down to the bottom of the bell housing? Are all the parts ferrous to be picked up by the magnetic? That would be my lazy approach.

Your alternative of moving the engine to the right (passenger side) would require removing the front and right mounts while balancing the engine on a jack (or jacks) or via a hoist. I'd use a hoist, but you may not have enough room between the engines accessory drives and the frame rail - but 1.5"-2" might be enough.

 

You can separate the tranny without removing the engine. It will take two strong individuals and some patience but it can be done.

 

Just follow the procedure for removing the tranny from the Haynes manual. You won't completely remove it from the engine bay, but you will need a floor jack (with an adapter to keep the tranny straight and level, or a special tranny lift jack, or as said below, a couple of big strong guys to manhandle it. You have to pop out the drive shafts (the biggest headache, and will require you to get a front end alignment) beforehand and remove the block/bellhousing bolts (18mm) along with a few other items to get them separated.

The end of the clutch cable should look like it has a big steel slug welded on the end with a couple of big steel washers and I believe a rubber bushing between them. It all clips easily into the throwout bearing pivot arm. If any of that is missing and all you have is a cable end and nothing else, then yeah, it is in the bell housing and you MUST remove it.

While you are at it and have gone to all that trouble (and believe me if you remove the tranny or the engine - it IS trouble!) go ahead and replace the clutch. I don't know how many miles you have on it, but if the cable end popped off while it was running, the FOD may have damaged the clutch plate too.

My friend who owned the car before me had replaced the clutch less then 6 months before he gave it to me, but when I pulled it apart to fix the motor, there was a piece of FOD in the bellhouse (not the clutch cable end, but some plastic chunk of something) that knocked a big chunk out of the clutch plate and if I had not caught that, I would have had to tear it back apart again to fix that.