Overhauled 2005 Viper in Sweden

[Fredrik Eriksson]

One year has passed since I bought my 2005 with 31500 miles on the clock. My childhood dream car was finally in my garage.
I had never sat in a Viper, nor driven one and I bought it unseen.
The car had some small faults that I was informed of before my purchase. The HVAC motor only runs on max setting, the headlamps were a bit foggy and the tires where old.

This winter I undertook the task of giving the car some needed love and care. Aswell as doing some modifications.

Maintenance and DIY:
Fix the HVAC motor resistor
Fix two broken mounting holes in the driver side door panel
Polish the headlamps
Making some DIY window wipers
Lower shift boot
Clean all control arms and suspension
Stabilizer bar end links
Transmission mount
Filming inside the differential to find out if I have a gen3 or gen4 diff.
Radiator hoses
Coolant flush and new coolant
Oil lines
Power steering lines
Multibelt
Belt tensioner pulley
Exhaust mounts
Engine oil and filter
Transmission oil
Differential oil
Brake fluid
Paint the holes in the chassis where the exhaust exit through
Grease all control arm joints
New tires
New battery

Cost: ~2363 $

Modifications:
Belanger high flow cats
Installing skip shift eliminator
Lowering the gearstick 1 inch
Lowering the seats 2 inches
Mounting the stock roll bar hoops
Drill access holes for the front bolt on the rocker panels
Tighten up the steering rack adjuster

Cost: ~3187 $

Total cost: ~5550 $

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The car with the city Sundsvall in the background

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HVAC motor resistor with broken connection that I soldered back in place

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Broken side panel mounting holes

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DIY steel washers that I epoxied to the panel to give the mounting screws some new support

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Headlamps after polishing on top and before under

 

[Fredrik Eriksson]

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Broken stock wiper blade

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Aftermarket wiper blade that I cut off the rubber from

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New rubber glued to stock wiper blade

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Seat removed

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Lowered driver seat compared to stock passenger seat

 

[Fredrik Eriksson]

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Both seats lowered

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Stock roll bar hoops installed

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1 inch gear stick lowering

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Lowered stick with the broken boot underneath

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Boot removed

 

[Fredrik Eriksson]

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Threaded rivet nuts installed

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New boot installed

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Console back in place

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Dirty suspension

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Cleaned suspension

 

[Fredrik Eriksson]

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Cracked stabilizer bar end links

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All links removed

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New link mounted

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Cracked transmission mount

Dodge Viper SRT-10 differential inspection

Is it a Gen 3 or Gen 4 differential?

www.youtube.com

According to the dealer a previous owner swapped the stock Hydra-Lok for the much better GKN Visco-Lok.
No receipts or documentation was provided, but after laying on the dealers floor I could see that the differential housing had been opened.
To put my doubts to rest I bought an inspection camera and filmed inside the diff. And YES, it is a GKN Visco-Lok in there!

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Skip shift eliminator

 

[Fredrik Eriksson]

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Engine bay with all stock hoses and lines

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Nasty underside of leaking top radiator hose and leaking power steering.

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Small cracks on top of top radiator hose. Ticking time bomb!

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Draining coolant. Okey color and no dirt or debris to my pleasure.

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Disgusting

 

[Fredrik Eriksson]

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Let's clean this up!
I started with flushing the system with radiator cleaner fluid and then flushing twice with water.

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Leaking power steering line connection at the pump

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New fitting on PS pump

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New fitting in steering rack

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New radiator hose and PS line

 

[Fredrik Eriksson]

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Leaking oil line connections to the engine. To my surprise, I never saw a single drop of oil on the garage floor.

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New oil lines.
I ended up with a spacer on the foremost line connection to make sure that the line cleared the belt tensioner.

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New oil lines

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New PS lines

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New PS lines connecting to fan motor

 

[Fredrik Eriksson]

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Engine bay with all new hoses, lines, belt and tensioner

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Stock midpipes and rusty chassis

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Broken exhaust mounts

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Stock midpipes that turned out to have been cracked at some point and "fixed"

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Welds made by a lower primate

 

[Fredrik Eriksson]

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Belanger midpipes that fit the stock exhaust.
I bought these to reduce heat in the foot wells and to give the car a bit more sound.

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Painted chassi holes. I removed as much rust as I could with a rotating steel brush before painting.

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Drilling access holes

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Drilling access holes

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16mm access holes

 

[Fredrik Eriksson]

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Lovely access with 10mm socket

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Plugged access hole

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Rubber plugs

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Plugged access hole

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Very old brake fluid

 

[Fredrik Eriksson]

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Tightened up steering rack (~1/8 turn)

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Old rear tire. Production year 2007

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Old front tire (cracked). Production year 2007

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New rear tire compared with my daily drive Suzuki

 

[Fredrik Eriksson]

Enjoy the post and hopefully someone will find it useful.
If someone have any questions or insults please post here below

 

[SneakyPete13]

This really is something! Congrats Fredrik. Excellent documentation on a fantastic journey!

 

[LandyAndy]

Awesome job! I bet it drives like a brand new snake!

 

[Jametemp]

Wow, looks like you put a lot of time and money into it. But it looks great. Thanks for posting pics

 

[Fredrik Eriksson]

Wow, looks like you put a lot of time and money into it. But it looks great. Thanks for posting pics

Many lovely hours with hard rock blaring from the speakers and cold beers in hand

I updated the first post with approximate costs. Not too bad in my opinion
Maintenance and DIY: ~2363 $
Modifications: ~3187 $
Total cost: ~5550 $

 

[MoparMap]

On that blower motor, I had something similar happen, but you might want to do one more thing. That soldered section is more or less like a fuse. The only reason it would **** would be if it got hot enough to melt the solder, so that means there is a problem somewhere else. Odds are the blower motor bearings are just a little rough. I took my motor out and put some white lithium grease on the bearings to get everything turning smoothly again. Lowers the load on the motor which is likely what caused the solder to melt to begin with. Just a heads up in case you lose the speeds again. It's super easy to drop the motor out and probably something worth doing every few years anyway.

Great work though! Always nice to see people willing to jump in and do things themselves. These cars really are pretty easy to work on compared to a lot of the more exotic stuff out there. Reminds me of a few things I should probably look at myself. It also never ceases to amaze me how well the suspension on these cars cleans up. Dodge put some kind of miracle coating on the control arms since they seem to just wipe off and look brand new.

 

[Fredrik Eriksson]

On that blower motor, I had something similar happen, but you might want...

Good advice

However the connection was heavily oxidated/corroded and I'm quite convinced that it failed because of that. I had to carefully grind and sand the connecting surfaces to ensure a good soldering.

The Viper is the easiest car to work on that I have ever experienced. A true pleasure!

 

[JonB]

Great Post! I have already referred Phillip in Germany to this excellent thread. It will help owners for a long time. Worthy of a G1 Sticky !

JonB

 

[Fredrik Eriksson]

I updated the 5th post with a clip of me filming inside the differential housing with an inspection camera to find out if I have a gen3 or gen4 differential.
The dealer told me that the car had a gen4 diff but could not provide any documents to prove it. Turns out he was correct!