Nailed it!

One for the memorabilia archive

Dodge Aspen : The most recalled car of all time

As known, the Monteverdi Sierra is underneath simply a Dodge Aspen / Plymouth Volare.
Till now I had only read a very few articles about it. So I extended my search a little more regarding potential problems. So I bumped into this article:

https://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/g261/4345725/?slide=5

1976 Dodge Aspen and Plymouth Volare 

Year of Recall: 1976 and 1977
There was absolutely nothing startling about how the new 1976 Dodge Aspen and Plymouth Volare twins were engineered. These compact-size coupes, sedans and wagons were strictly conventional mid-1970s cars with Chrysler's proven slant-Six or V8 engines in their noses, a unibody chassis and a strictly ordinary suspension system. But despite that, the Aspen and Volare were among the most recalled cars of all time. The 1976 versions of these two were recalled an incredible eight times by the end of 1977 by the NHTSA.

The recalls were for everything from the emissions control systems to fuel systems and seatbelt retractors. It was almost unfathomable how many screwups had been engineered into these two very ordinary cars.

Aspen and Volare owners, however, had more than just the recalls to worry about; rust was also a major problem with the twins, and various mechanical maladies seemed to strike them constantly. This was the Chrysler Corporation at its lowest ebb--the company was in danger of going bankrupt during 1978 and 1979. It was only a series of government loan guarantees, engineered by its then-new CEO Lee Iacocca, that saved Chrysler in 1979.

Or what about this review on YouTube:




“Aspen and Volaré were introduced in 1975, but they should have been delayed a full six months. The company was hungry for cash, and this time Chrysler didn't honor the normal cycle of designing, testing, and building an automobile. The customers who bought Aspens and Volarés in 1975 were  actually acting as Chrysler's development engineers. When these cars first came out, they were still in the development phase.
“Looking back over the past twenty years or so, I can't think of any cars that cased more disappointment among customers than the Aspen and the Volaré. … But the Aspen and the Volaré simply weren't well-made. The engines would stall when you stepped on the gas. The brakes would fail. The hoods would fly open. Customers complained, and more than three and a half million cars were brought back to the dealers for free repairs – free to the customer, that is. Chrysler had to foot the bill.” ---Lee Iacocca, Iacocca: An Autobiography (pg. 160) Yikes! What have we bought!? Hehe, well, let's see if we get the engine running first.

Start me up!

Well, here is the photo of the stud:

Here another photo of the starting wheel. I like the fact it also has been painted blue. I wonder why they painted the fly wheel? And perhaps difficult to see, there is this 3rd hole for another bolt. I had it removed as I mistakenly thought it was also holding the starter motor. For me it was invisible so to be sure I had it removed. So now I have put it back again. And yes, the new starter motor fits!

But first I had to test both of them. As indicated last week, looks like the old starter motor is not seized after all. And as can be seen in the video it is functioning. Although it sounded very tired:

The new one obviously worked and it was revving/whirring nicely:

But last week somehow something else must have been broken. I checked the starter motor diagram and it's very simple:

Hopefully the starter relay was not broken somehow. So I checked the fuse panel and found fuse nr 3 broken.

The description field showed many items and one of them was "ignition under the hood".
So after replacement I hooked up the new starter motor and it was whizzing!

So I mounted the new starter motor, looks a bit shiny compared with the rest:

So time for a quick test:

And yes, it's working again. So I had to put a jerrycan of gas underneath the car and put the fuelhose in it. When starting again the fuel was sucked into it, so looks like that is working as well:

The engine however would not start up and I sensed the battery used is not powerful enough. So to get the engine properly "spinning" I had all the spark plugs removed and sprayed the chambers with WD40.

I started the engine without the spark plugs and now it was revving much better.

When putting the plugs back in again, sprayed with a can of  "start pilot" into the carburettor it still didn't want to run. I checked one sparkplug and could see it gave a spark. So all ingredients are there. Not sure though about the carburettor and the mixture. Maybe something I need to look into next time. First I will purchase a proper jumpstarter for more power to start the engine.

May the force be with you!

Yes you can! I went to the DIY shop and bought this steel bar for more power:

And finally it went, the stud loosened up. Forgot to make a photo of the stud itself.

Starter finally removed and the inside of the fly wheel:

And for comparisson the old and new one next to each other. Quite a bit of difference in size. But the new one is apparently more powerful:

And it does look like it's only mounted with two screws. But I have removed in total 3 - will check it next time.

Upon checking both starters nothing happened when I hooked up the wiring of the car. UH OH!!
I suspect something else has failed. Whilst I thought the old starter motor was broken, stuck, etc I could move the little wheel, it feels it's not stuck at all. Well, I guess need to check electrics next time. On my last attempt the wiring really got hot so a lot of current must have been flowing thru it.

And earlier this week I received the following surprise. A small refund on the new starter motor! How's that!?  It costed new about € 75,- (incl. shipping from the USA to NL). But now it only costs € 62,-


We're writing to let you know we processed your refund of EUR13.08 for your Order 111-0732005-1601800 from EccppAutoParts.

This refund is for the following item(s):

    Item: Starter for Mini Mopar Dodge Plymouth 318 360 Chrysler Cordoba 5.9L Compatible with SR6504N
    Quantity: 1
    ASIN: B071L82J2T
    Reason for refund: Export fee reduced

    Here's the breakdown of your refund for this item:

        Import Fee Deposit Refund: EUR13.08

We'll apply your refund to the following payment method(s):

MasterCard Credit Card: EUR13.08