M finally decided the old Impreza wasn't worth fixing. Compression had gotten so low the car would roll in gear with the engine off. In a way this is the one that started all of our Subaru off pavement adventures after I hit a deer over a decade ago. A little disappointing it didn't hit 300,000 miles. Certainly the most entertainment per dollar of any car I've ever owned.
inside of the gas tank:
Some of the parts we scavenged. The main things I wanted were the wheels (and tires), shifter/console (although most of that doesn't fit my '98), and the front axles and knuckles. The knuckles had been upgraded to the bolt on wheel bearing style and it had the big front wheel drive style axles. We considered removing the transmission (since it's the older style 5MT with the top inspection plate) and a few other things but had to draw the line somewhere.
That left us with the question of how to make it roll. The simplest/cheapest idea I could come up with was to weld a tube to the bottom of the control arms (they're kinda rusty and I already have a few pairs of good stock ones).
Then I welded some short pieces of tubing inside some space savers to act as hubs. These weren't centered or anything but it was just for getting the car out of the garage and on the flatbed.
"hubs" were retained by tack welds.
Gave us some hot Carolina squat action. Don't worry we kept the chrome lug nuts and only used a couple old rusty lug nuts per wheel to put some crappy tires on the back.
M specifically told the tow company they should come with a flat bed but they didn't. He insisted the guy look at how poorly the "front axle" was attached but the guy was unconcerned. Put the front end on a dolly and dragged it out of town. Frightening.
A day or two later when I unloaded the parts the one taillight still had plenty of blinker fluid in it.
Have made some progress on the green Impreza too. Will try to post a few pictures sometime. Unfortunately I've been busy with other things. Mainly buying a building to move my machine tools into. In the long run that should be great but it's kept me from finishing the Impreza.