I agree. This sounds exactly like post-intake-manifold-repair egine failure. The days, weeks, and months of slow coolant sipping probably ate your bearings. My guess is that you're headed for a new engine, despite babying your car and fixing the intake failure when you became aware of it. Unfortunately we've seen it happen before.

In December I discovered I had intake failure when I noticed the engine overheat. I had the intakes done the next day. Everything'* been fine since then, but I'm still kind of holding my breath, hoping my bearings didn't rust away.

And I'd just like to say it really pisses me off when this happens to good people who otherwise take good care of their car.

That'* one of the reasons the Intake Failure is a must read stickied at the top of the page.

Depending on how bad the pressure/ticking is..you might be able to have the bearings replaced and crank checked. Should be relatively low cost with how easy our oil pans come off the car.

If I do choose to replace the engine, what year boneville engines will bolt right in with no problem and have all the same connections? I may end up getting a used engine.

95-99 will bolt right up easy. And many 00+ -probably will as well. However my knowledge is 95-99 for sure.