[njsteve]

Got the transmission "detached." I won't say removed because I just pulled it back far enough to get the slave cylinder and throwout bearing off the input shaft. This way the transmission is still in an aerial holding pattern that is a straight forward shot into the bellhousing.

Of course my 15 year old Harbor Freight transmission jack failed as I was about to attempt the uncoupling. Luckily the floor jack was still under the engine and was holding the entire drivetrain up at the time. I remembered it failed before when I was pulling the transmission out of Grampa's Lincoln three years ago so it was about time to run back to HF to get another one. Luckily they had it in stock with a 10% off coupon today. Too bad they dont just sell a new cylinder for these damn things.

Anyway, you can see that the slave cylinder did in fact fail which seems to be a common occurence on Vipers from what I have seen while googling the interwebs.

I figure that in 28 years of ownership (which includes 8,000 hard miles in the first 5 years and then over two decades of sitting idle), this is the first actual drivetrain component to fail. The only other parts that have gone bad are one wiper motor two years ago and the grey flocked, fuzzy dash finish that decomposes on all Gen 1 Vipers.

I used several bottles of brake clean so far to flush and wipe away the residue inside the bellhousing area. I never had a problem with the clutch and it appears that all the leakage was travelling toward the transmission and away from the clutchplate itself. When I closely examined the interior of the clutch plate it was dry and surface rusty looking with no evidence that the fluid got between the disc and the plate. I don't want to replace the clutch assembly since that's another item that the aftermarket does not seem to get right (from other googling research) with the majority of the clutch kits mistakenly including a C5 Corvette disc instead of the 24 spline Viper disc. And when they get the disc right they get the installed height wrong. One guy had to pull his transmission 4 times to get the clutch working properly and in the end gave up and used his original clutch plate and disc.