I think I figured out ALL of my past kernel problems.  You have to rerun lilo after every kernel recompile.  I usually just leave a /boot/bzImage as a test image and have an entry in lilo that reflects that.  Well if that file changes you have to rerun lilo to put it in the MBR.  I never knew that!  Now that I've done that I can get my kernel 2.4.3 to boot like a charm.  The only problem I have now is I can't find iptables to run masquerading.