new powertrain?

[sofaking_bob]

so my car is messed up. a few months ago i took it to walmart to have the oil changed out... i work there and it's convenient for me to drop it off and pick it back up after work... so they tell me that they can't change the oil.. that i've got a main seal leak and a rear seal leak and that my oil plug is leaking. so i take it to a mechanic my dad uses.. he says that there is no leak.. t's just dirty underneath there.. cleans it up, changes the oil.. sends me on my way. well.. about three weeks later i go to leave work and my car won't shift out of neutral, like the clutch isn't engaged or something. i turn the car off.. and put it into first and then turn it on and it jerks a bit like i didn't have my foot on the clutch.. kinda catches up with itself and then it's fine.. but i can't stop or i have to turn the car back off.. shift and then turn it on again... sucks... so i take it back to the same mechanic.. he's all like.. ou got problems.. you've got leaks in the main and rear seals... you're gonna need a new clutch.. this that and another thing.. bottom line was that he said that the car wasn't worth salvaging. it would take several hundred dollars to repair it. so i was just wondering.. well.. not so much that.. i KNOW that it would be cheaper to buy a new engine and tranny and have it put in than to have the existing ones worked on over and over again. i just wonder what to get. i'm not even sure about how big my engine is.. i think it's a 2.0?? might be a 1.8 i've never really paid that much attention to it... anyway... i was thinking something a little bit bigger than what i've got and what about the transmission? any suggestions?

[A20A1]

You more thn likely have an A20A3 2.0 liter since you have an LXI... the "A20A3" is also labled as "BT" on some early motors

you can see the engine code about 6 inches down on the block from the distributor... it may have oil covering it...

If you have an A18 then it is 1.8 liters... hence the "18" after the "A" but I doubt it since the A18 was carbed if I remember correctly.

The A20 is as big as it gets in terms of what will be easy to locate and drop in.

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[2drSE-i]

well, seeing as hes the mechanic and you told him you had those leaks to begin with, i think he is liable for the clutch. but since hes a family friend (sorta) i dunno what you should do.

A20A3 is a 2 liter


some guy was making fun of me in my programming class about how my car had less volume than his drink

i said

o yea!? its exactly the same size!


proved him wrong huh?

[danronian]

I would just get a new clutch and not worry about the oil leaks. Just make sure to check the oil level every week so that it doesn't get too low. How many miles are on the engine/tranny?
If I were you I would only change out the engine if your car has over 250k mi on it, otherwise I wouldn't since it probably doesn't leak that much oil.

[AZmike]

So you need a few seals and a clutch and you want to replce the engine and transmission? What other problems does it have? A clutch kit and both crank seals should be less than $200 total. Do the work yourself and keep using your car. I wouldn't replace just the clutch if the rear crank seal is bad. Since most of the same stuff comes off to change the clutch and you may end up with an oil soaked clutch disc it makes sense to do everything at once.

[sofaking_bob]

my car does have over 250k on it. we think that it's got the same engine that it's always had, but we're not sure.. when it's up and running right it really runs well. my dad has some suspisions that the engine might have been rebuilt but we've never had it looked into. i have NO idea what all is wrong with it. i've just got one guy telling me one thing, other people telling me other things and nobody telling me the same thing... it's really confusing. i figured that since it does have over 250k on it that i might as well have it all replaced. the mechanic my dad uses said that if we didn't get it all fixed at once that one problem would just lead to another and so on and that to fix everything would pretty much mean replacing everything. if fixing it means replacing it then i'm all for it.. spending even $2500 on fixing somethign that i like is still cheaper than buying a "new to me" car that i might not like as much, dig? i've got some future engine mods that i want to have done and it seems sensible that i'd do it to a newer engine.. to me anyway. i really just wondered what you folks thought. i've just recently gotten to where i want to do things to my car rather than using it to get from a-b. i've raced a few people with like eclipses and newer civics and focuses and things of that sort with some very slight modifications and beaten the hell out of them... so i'm just imagining what all i could do to them with modifications of my own... but i do need a reliable powertrain for that. i appreciate your help.