6G Celicas Forums

Just bought a 96 GT hatch. Haven't really done anything to it yet except get the exhaust fixed. Driving just fine to my mechanic's house to have him look at it and all of a sudden I start to hear a clinking noise. He says it's a rod and the dealership quoted me $1400 in labor and about $3k in parts.....Please, anyone have some helpful information on what I should do and the least expensive way to fix it? Thanks

Well whatever you do, you can do it a lot cheaper than the dealer quote. If it's truly a rod knocking, your options are to rebuild or purchase a new engine. Rebuilding can get expensive if you can't do it yourself, the parts should be pretty cheap though. You could find a decent 2.2 replacement motor for pretty cheap since they're so common, you would then just have to swap it yourself or pay someone to do it. Or if you can afford it you could find something like a 3sgte or 3sge to swap for some performance, but it will cost more and be more work.

Sorry to hear your new car is causing some problems. How many miles are on it?

could you give a more accurate description as to were the clinking is coming from??im sure the people here would have some idea as to what is wrong.

Just get a new engine I should be cheaper anyway...I had rod knock and my mechanic fixed it I guess...he replaced the rod bearing but he said it wasn't gonna last more than 3 months....its been running fine for a year lol

I already attempted a 3sgte swap into my old ST celica and ran into tons of problems with the sad excuse for a shop near my house. I know a guy with a shop in his garage that has worked at Toyota for 20 years and he told me it was definitely a rod. He recommended just building it up while it's apart and eventually dropping a turbo on but I don't have the money for that. The motor in it now has 181k, same as my last celica but it had no problems. I Don't really have the money for either solution haha so I was crossing my fingers that someone on here had the same problem and found a cheap fix even if it's just temp.

If it's rod knock it isn't going to be cheap to fix.

You either need to go buy a new(er) 5s-fe and install that, or look into buying a 3SGE or 3SGTE. If you purchase a full clip or halfcut you'll have everything you need to swap it over. Just send your harnesses to Dr tweak and then it's plug and play. You'll need to have an exhaust made as well.

You'll have fewer problems swapping a 3sge or 3sgte into this car since the motor mounts and everything are the same. You could even use the same tranny if you like.

If you lived closer I'd offer my help rebuilding. I guess just keep your eye out for a 5sfe that you can use.

So you're saying the reason I had so much trouble swapping the 3s motor into my last celica was becuase it was an ST?

Yes. Still not hard but it's not a drop in by any means

Basically, a 3SGTE will drop in to a GT's motor mounts and bolt straight up to the transmission, where in an ST you would need to change out the mounts and get a GT or MR2 transmission. If you had a clip or a halfcut it would be a piece of cake for GT or ST.

except for tranny...

Which is what I said. GJ!

Not really.
it's still a bunch of tranny parts for ST even with a halfcut [Unless you get MR2 and then you have that BS to deal with]
What Steven was saying is GT + halfcut = done
Not true with ST

correct. you need either the GT tranny, MR2 tranny, or v6 tranny (e153), plus the proper shiftcables, axles, and whatnot. the ST is NOT bolt-in no matter where you get the 3s from