I have found a rolled 95 sidekick 4 door with 16V and 3 spd auto. I want to buy it and put the engine/tranny/t-case doubled in a sammy. I can get the whole car for $850 bucks. It runs but here is where I need help. Whoever rolled it just bailed out and let it lay there till it hydro-locked. The guy who has it pulled the plugs, got the oil blown out and got it running. It seems to run fine but has two problems. If you hold the accelorator (with tranny in neutral/park) where it should hold the rpm's at 1000 the rpm's go up and down sharply. When you give it more the fluctuation goes away. It idles nicely at about 600 rpm. The second is that it has a tick or knock at about 1000 rpm but goes away above or below that rpm. It does this in gear or out of gear. Lastly the kick down cable is not tight. Right where it connects to the throttle body the cable is pulled out of the cable housing a bit and has slack in it. IS that ok?

My questions are these. It has 180,000 miles on it, is that past prime and therefore not worth buying? The quite knock sounds no different from most 1.3L sammy engines I have been around but is it toast any way? Should I avoid buying it because of its pryor misuse? Do these really pull 4500 rpm to go 65 miles an hour? I drove it and it seems like the rpms are way high for the speed its going. Its definately not in 4 low and it is definately shifting though all gears.

Thanks for any help and the flame suit is on

The RPM fluctuation could be from a vacuum leak or oil getting somewhere where it shouldn't be.
The tick or knock could be either valve noise or crank/rod bearing noise....kinda hard to diagnose sounds without hearing them in person.
Are you sure it has a 3 speed auto in it? I have been told that 4 doors only had 4 speed autos. If it has a "ball" shaped shifter handle with an OD lockout button on the underside of it, it is a 4 speed. Four speeds should also have a rocker switch on the center console (around the shifter handle area) labeled something like "power/economy". If it has a "T" shaped shifter handle with a button on the side of the "T" then it is a 3 speed.

Wow usually I am not that stupid as to buy something that I wasnt aware of :shaking:. Gonna have to do some more thinking on this swap now.

the idle problem will be one of two things.the idle speed control motor- make sure the water jackets leading into it are not blocked with corrosion, this will prevent warm coolant from entering the unit and bringing the idle down correctly. the second is the throttle position sensor. get it up to the rpm where it fluctuates and adjust the sensor ever-so-slightly, if it satbilises lock the sensor in that postion and it should work. the knocking sound could be many things, piston slap, bottom end or valves. it does have a lot of miles on it though.

Since it runs I would say that price is decent. Is it going in a daily driver? If not throw that thing in your wheeler and run it till it gets worse.

Looks at it this way I would say most people buy these motor not really knowing much if anything about them (along with myself) and i've been running mine for about 6 years now with no problems what so ever. It at the point now where it'll just blow a little bit of smoke when it is first started up after it sits for more than a day but still has plenty of power.

Ok now I have had some beer and reflection. I drove it before buying it and was surprised that it doesnt smoke (after we removed the oil filled cat) and that it turned 4500 rpm to go 65 mph. I went out and turned it on and could instantly tell why, the over drive was in the off position. The verdict is that I did not look at it very well and ended up with a 4speed instead of the 3 speed auto I was thinking it was.

I edited my original post as it turned out to be 95 so its obd 1 I think. Is the tranny going to be computer controlled? I am going to pull the oil pan and check the piston skirts. If they are broken is it hard to do a re-ring/refresh on one of these? I have another sammy with a 16V in it that I was planning on selling when I got the new one done. It runs absolutely fantastic and I wouldnt be against taking its engine and selling the knocker instead if I couldnt find a long block that was any good. How do I adjust the TPS? I didnt even know they were adjustable :confused:

on early engines they are adjustable. there are 2 phillips head screws, loosen them of and adjust, but remember only in very small increments.

The trany is computer controlled, you can still use it if you are comfortable with wireing. you will have to strip the harness from the kick and adapt it to the sammy. this is the way I have done all my 1.6 swaps. if you need wire collors I think I have them wrote down some where. BTW a rebuild on this engine is no harder then any other engine, depending on how bad the knock is you may want to consider it.