Busy Weekend: Drove 1500mi, Met Another Oppo, Bought His Car

[MM54]

As the close followers of Oppo goings-on may recall, @Eury recently bought and decided to sell a rusty but otherwise pretty-good 2002 WRX. I finally took my own advice, and bought it.

Friday afternoon, I worked a half-day, then went to the local u-haul and picked up a trailer. Came home, had lunch, packed up, and headed to a friend's place in Erie, PA for the night. The first leg of a long trip.

Saturday morning, I pick up a different friend in the area at 7am and set the GPS... 600 miles, estimated 9 hours. It's rainy, but otherwise not too bad of a drive - pretty much I90 for 500 miles, then a jaunt north from almost-Boston up to NH. It was snowing in Buffalo because it always is. There were some significant storms in central MA, but then it finally cleared up as we made it into town around 6pm.

Side note: what is it with people in the eastern half of NY and in MA that will pass you, then even though the next half mile of road in front of you is clear, merge over approximately six inches from your front bumper? This happened literally at least a hundred times on this trip. I'm pulling a heavy-ass trailer, I'm not going 10 over the speed limit.

Finally, Sunday morning. We check out of the hotel (which had very chunky milk with their breakfast offerings but was otherwise nice) and meet up with @Eury himself. The car is, frankly, better than he lets on. There's rust in the rockers and rear quarters (and a couple badish spots underneath) but it is completely stock, starts on the first turn, and the interior is near mint.

The drive back to Erie was overall better than the drive out, since it wasn't raining the whole time. The truck did well pulling 3000lb of car on 2200lb of trailer, got a good workout but never missed a beat or so much as budged the engine or transmission temperature needles past normal. Then about 50 miles east of Buffalo... it started snowing again. This would continue until about 50 miles south of Buffalo, where it switched back to rain/snow mix. Other than periods of lousy visibility and the snow/ice caking over the headlights (because it was dark by now, of course...) it wasn't too-too bad. Could have been a lot worse.

This morning I left my Erie friends at, once again... 7am. After driving 100 miles on Friday, 600 Saturday, and 600 Sunday, the 100 miles home flew by. The weather was very nearly clear. I was home around 9:30, unloaded the car, and returned the trailer. I then grabbed lunch... and headed into work for a half-day because the world is crazy. Final trip odometer-of-towing (reset when I picked it up) reading: 1498mi. Not too bad for about 100 gallons of gas and half a quart of oil.

It's home, filthy, but good. I'm working on a shortlist of what it needs. There's a spot or two of rust that needs addressed before they become structural issues, mainly. I'll be keeping an eye on the coolant/oil/etc. to determine what's going on with the suspected headgasket leak as well.

With the Oppo Heritage of this car, you all will be the first to hear as things develop/progress (it'll get a sticker once I've washed it beyond a quick clean-the-windshield-so-I-can-see-to-get-it-inside).

[AestheticsInMotion]

@mm54 nice!! So what's the plan, winter runabout?

[Snakesm13]

@mm54 excellent! I think all of us were tempted in some way to jump on this great deal. Glad it stays in the Oppo family.

[Highlander]

@mm54 I always loved the bug eye. They are amazing on dirt roads too.

[drVanTraveler]

The bug eyes were the worst part of the car. Absolutely terrible headlights.. Only good fix is total replacement of both units.

[ST80MND]

@mm54 Congrats! Sounds like a good way to kill a weekend.

[Boxer_4]

@mm54 That radiator doesn't look stock, possibly a Mishimoto... very nice! I'm guessing the top plastic end-tank on the OEM radiator failed at one point, as seems to be common with age on these.

If you need help with that short-list - building it or knocking it out, you know where to find me...

[Shop-Teacher]

@mm54 Outstanding!

[MM54]

@aestheticsinmotion said in Busy Weekend: Drove 1500mi, Met Another Oppo, Bought His Car:

@mm54 nice!! So what's the plan, winter runabout?

Pretty much - have fun in the winter, probably do some rallycross.

@highlander said in Busy Weekend: Drove 1500mi, Met Another Oppo, Bought His Car:

@mm54 I always loved the bug eye. They are amazing on dirt roads too.

It's a long trip to find any dirt roads around here (for some reason) but I hope to find out.

@st80mnd said in Busy Weekend: Drove 1500mi, Met Another Oppo, Bought His Car:

@mm54 Congrats! Sounds like a good way to kill a weekend.

Thanks! It wasn't bad. Basically hanging out with a friend all weekend in a truck cab!

@boxer_4 said in Busy Weekend: Drove 1500mi, Met Another Oppo, Bought His Car:

@mm54 That radiator doesn't look stock, possibly a Mishimoto... very nice! I'm guessing the top plastic end-tank on the OEM radiator failed at one point, as seems to be common with age on these.

If you need help with that short-list - building it or knocking it out, you know where to find me...

I'll have to go through the inch-thick stack of service records and see, it seems everything is in here from new!

As for the list, yes (to both). You probably can list what it needs without having even seen it.

[Taylor Martin]

@mm54 said in Busy Weekend: Drove 1500mi, Met Another Oppo, Bought His Car:

have fun in the winter, probably do some rallycross.

Noice! I think after Thanksgiving, once I know exactly how much money I have for the month, I'll take a deeper dive into a rally car myself... if the car is drivable, I'd go up to Ohio for events for sure!

[MM54]

@taylor-martin You'll have a hard time racing a car that isn't drivable

[Taylor Martin]

@mm54 Correction: is drivable on roads.

Though, to get back to Ohio, it'd have to make it 600-ish miles there and back, which is a lot to ask of a POS car.

[ClassicDatsunDebate]

@mm54
Congrats!
Another excuse to fire up the welder!

[RallyDarkstrike]

@mm54 Yay! Glad to see a bugeye being rescued! I still miss my old Impreza 2.5TS wagon....was glorious in the snow!

[MM54]

@classicdatsundebate Looking forward to getting underneath and determining exactly what needs done and what should be done. And what ought to be done to secure the one piece of trim which is clipped into the air where there used to be metal.