So here is my new project. The site will be a great place to track what happens with it, but initially I will drive it to replace my aging VW Eurovan, while fixing a bunch of deferred maintenance and neglect. The guy I bought it off of was nice enough, but he had zero receipts and didn't know a socket from a screwdriver, so I'm going into this one planning on learning a few things.
Right off the bat, there is oil leaking from the valve cover (big surprise) all over the exhaust manifold and making a lot of bad smell, the LF wheel appears to be bent at the outer lip causing a chassis shake, LF front sway bar end link is broken (connected methinks), tires are mis-matched between front and rear (one of my cardinal rules to avoid at all costs, but this does have staggered wheels so I let it slide), and the car is totally filthy. All of this helped with my negotiating, and this 115k mile ugly ducking is now mine. On the bright side the car is a nice color combo, doesn't rattle or do anything weird, has no dash lights, seems to run great and is faster than I'd expect, and has a clean CarFax. It checks all the right boxes for what I was looking for, and will be a good project.
I'm excited to dig in, and to log the project on the site.