jason

It idles a little rough, but decent on the high end. It's noticeably quicker, I just have to tune it a little I think.

So after a lot of headache we finally figured it out. I had several mechanic friends come over to listen, each one offering a different opinion. In the end, someone recommended letting it run for a few minutes. This thought never occurred to me because I was too scared that more damaged might be caused. I guess it just wasn't getting oil yet. All of the noises and problems vanished...

Yeah it was the pilot bearing. We overlooked it the first time, then took everything back apart and removed it, and replaced it with the MT pilot bearing. That quieted the noise from within the bell housing. Put the new clutch kit in while we were at it.

No, all we had to swap were the fan, alternator, engine to transmission brackets, throttle cable housing, and remove some extra stuff. There was a spacer pressed into the back where the transmission shaft goes in that gave us some trouble, too. Nothing internal, though.

No, I didn't even know that was necessary. I will consult the manual. Thank you.

Took me about six days (lots of BIG mistakes and trips to the parts store), but the new motor is in. There is a strange intermittent chatter coming from what sounds like the front of the oil pan. It's definitely internal, and way to loud to be an exhaust leak. Sounds like metal on metal. After about six or seven seconds of running properly (aside from the noise), the engine idle drops down to about 200 RPM's, barely able to keep itself going. Also, it smells similar to what we experienced when we ruined the clutch when we forgot to tighten down the pressure plate. Ouch. Any ideas?

What am I, your therapist?

The guy at the local JDM warehouse said that they don't stock engines for the '95 because the crankshaft is longer in the engines from Japan. If so, will that be a problem (might get a '95 from eBay or something) or should I just try stickin' a '93 or '94 engine in there? I have everything lined up to do this project and was about to buy the engine until I heard this.

Take out the two screws above the the heater controls, pull off the four knobs on the heater controls, pull out the ashtray and remove the two screws that are inside/on top of where the ashtray was, disconnect electrical connectors for heater controls, and from then it's just a matter of pulling it straight out without breaking any of the plastic snaps. If anything looks like it's holding it on, remove it. Pretty simple, you shouldn't have much trouble with it.

Thanks Slick.

There's one screw in the corner of the cover that is impossible to reach w/out removing the dist. I think I've done everything exactly as the Chilton and you and Slick have described: 14 mm bolt is removed. Everything's marked. It should just slide right up, right? It rotates back and forth a little, should I just try and pry it up?

I'm half way done with replacing my valve cover gaskets, but I can't get the DS valve cover off due to the distributor being in the way. I removed the 14 mm bolt, the small screw behind the rotor, and 3 small screws that that screw in vertically and are pretty much even spaced around the rotor. The distributor twists a little, but there is NO upward movement. I have to have it done by noon tomorrow, so any input anyone has tonight would be awesome.

When I did mine the bolts were extremely hard to come by. I bought 2 feet of 12 x 1.25 threaded rod, tightened 2 nuts together on the rod, screwed it in to the body and trimmed the excess rod.

Dude that was funny in the first grade.

It does sound similar, but yours sounds more like an exhaust manifold leak. I've dealt with those before, and the difference now is that the ticking does not get quieter when the engine warms up. I haven't tried the stethoscope method, but MY tick sounds like it is coming from cylinder # 1.