Greetings from the rust belt
 

Hello everyone! My name is Neil I'm 33 and love long walks on the beach;) I'm from Buffalo N.Y. aka the land of cheap engines and rotted chassis's. Just wanted to introduce myself and ask a question. I have 2 SL1s, a '99 and '00. Both are 1.9 SOHC. The '99 has a decent body but mechanically worn out, the '00 is rotted pretty bad but runs great. I'm fairly mechanically inclined, currently doing an LS swap on my 72 El Camino. I'm very comfortable with changing parts and I'm ok enough with troubleshooting to get by for the most part. I've never rebuilt a motor other than a few 2 strokes and a DOHC 4 stroke single cyl quad motor. It's time to change that and learn to rebuild car engines. My question is, would the 1.9 be a decent engine to learn on? Scale of 1-10 mechanical experience I'm probably a 6. My idea is to rebuild the engine in the '00 and put it in the '99. And then drive Saturn's for the next 20 years or so;) Thank you in advance and I promise I will use the search feature as much as I possibly can

An engine is an engine, so the 1.9 is just as good an engine as any to learn on. Just be sure to get some plasti-gauge so you can check your bearing clearances. Check the cylinders for a ridge around the top. If there is one, then don't bother rebuilding that engine unless you can find some over sized pistons and rings for it. I don't know if they're available or not. If no ridge, then you're good to go. Just take your time and follow instructions in any repair manual you may have. They're pretty simple engines and I'm sure you'll be okay with that. I THINK the engines should be interchangeable, but don't know. Maybe derf or Andy will be more help. I'm sure they'll both be checking in before long.