I've finally decided to become a member after two months of using the site because I need some insite anyways hello everyone im from Toronto Canada and long story short I'm not the greatest at home mechanic but I'm learning bear with me, so I baught my first car 01 LX or es1 I believe you would call it not really sure about 2 months ago and from the beggining it had tranny issues "grinding while the clutch is engaged and there is a load on the input shaft" I believe it's the Bearings specifically the ISB from reading other posts anyways the problem I encountered today was while I was changing my struts I noticed two gaps between the engine and the tranny I also managed to pull out a small black piece of something from the gap (possibly a piece of clutch disc or something idk) my question is, are these gaps normal and if so what did I pull out off my tranny on a side not the guy I baught the car from said its a swapped engine at 120km I have no proof other than that I checked the vin on the "new" d17 and it does not match the cars vin so it is a new engine but the real mileage will forever be a mistery. All help is appreciated

- Cheers, Darius