Interesting that you asked...

A couple of weekends ago I got back to it again. Decided that I didn't feel like pulling the oil pan because it didn't look as easy as I thought. Besides, I figured it probably wouldn't do much good.

I took a look at the timing chain and thought it was a little loose. Decided I might as well replace it since it only cost $10. When I replaced it, I noticed it was significantly tighter, which was good. This made me hopeful that it might have been the root of my knocking and idling problems. So, I started putting everything back together. Noticed I had managed to strip the thread for the bolt that holds the harmonic balancer on. So, I had to go find a die & tap set that actually had a 5/8" tap. After finally finding one at Sears and getting that on, I noticed there was some bolts missing from the oil pan. Couldn't find them and swore they were never there in the first place. So, I went and bought new ones. When I tried to put them in, they wouldn't screw in. I couldn't figure out if it was the new gasket that was in the way or what. I decided not to worry about them since they were only two and were on opposite sides of the pan.

I managed to get everything else back in and bolted together. I went to start it up, and dammit, the knocking was still there. I somewhat wasn't surprised, but I had some hope. Decided to drive it around anyways. Still idled rather roughly and had smoke coming out the tailpipe and engine head when I revved it. After driving it around for about 15 minutes, I brought it back.

That's when I noticed I was leaking oil...from one of the spots that was missing a bolt. I'm not surprised. So, I put it back in the garage. Just as I got it in the garage and was taking a look at the leak, one of the hoses suddenly started leaking radiator fluid. And we're not talking about just some small leak. It really started coming out.

The engine had completely overheated and the hose which connects the radiator to the water pump was bulging. When it finally finished leaking, I think the radiator had lost like 1/4 the fluid.

Needless to say I was pissed off and fed up. That's when I decided I definitely was going to have somebody else rebuild the engine. I never planned on doing it anyways, but thought I might be able to discover what was wrong with it and get that fixed. But, seeing as how replacing the timing chain didn't help, I think I'll just spend the $2500 to get it rebuilt professionally.

I'll stick to monkeying with small things on the engine.