hey, I'm new to the honda thing, I've recently come accross a 86 honda civic hatch in awesome shape (for an east coast canadian car) the engine runs like a top and looks like new, but it's an auto, and the tranny is iffy, I want to fix that though. I poked around a bit for specific answers and couldn't find much, might have been due to the site maintenance, but anyhow heres what I wanted to ask:

when you shift in and out of park and neutral it grinds for a second, first thing first, I'd like to know how to fix that, a friend says it's just cables that need adjusting, but this is an auto, is he crazy or am I?

next the rack is dead in it, I have to completely redo the entire steering assembly, would it be best to do it myself, as I'm pretty handy with it, and I did go to school to work on cars for a yr and a half, I'm just worried about something getting screwed up if there is a specific way of doing something that I'm unaware of.

and lastly, when I get the auto taken care of this will be the car I get my license in probly (I'm 22 but there have been circumstances beyond my control up to this point.) I want to swap in a 5-6 speed stick, do I need computers and a new gauge set and stuff like I did on my 89 sunbird, or is this a simple swap in kind of deal?

thanks ahead for the info, I'll be back with more gaurunteed if the money for this car comes up soon.

 

can anyone help?