I just bought a 96 neon. I never owned a neon or a dodge product (just hondas and chevys) the guy told me that it needed a knew transmission before i bought it. I started it up and it drove after messing with it for a while. i had to slam it in to gear and it would pop out it would make a sound like the throw out bearing wasnt working but i dont know. any way i drove it around and kept an eye on the gages they didnt seem to work right. when i stoped i could hear the antifreeze boiling and i checked the oil and shore enough it was full of water. so now it at leased needs a head gasket. Does any one know what caused that and how easy does neon heads warp ??? Thanks

 

first off, if the tranny makes a t.o.b. sound and pops out of gear then it sounds to me like your pilot bearing might have went bad......problems like this usually occur from previously being ran with too little of gear lube in the tranny.....my work car has the same exact problem sumtimes.....and the pilot bearing is the cause of it, i just dont wanna rip the tranny apart again to fix it....

if the car is a 96 then chances are that it doesnt have the mls headgasket on it....which would be the main reason that you have a headgasket problem.....the gasket eventually just deteriorates since it is basically made out of cardboard.......when you change it, just make sure to get a mls(multi layered steel) gasket and your problems should be solved

 

hmm...is there a reason you bought an 11yr old car with transmission problems? just curious

 

I like to fix things I guess. The shift linkage bushings on the tranny are warn out i wonder if that is the problem?

 

Could be a reason. Go to www.boogerbushings.com and get some $20 replacement bushings. They are GREAT.