First Timer/92 Sunbird/help!

[SquirlyHooch]

(I KNOW I WROTE A LOT BUT JUST BEAR WITH ME PLEASE!! I REALLY NEED THE HELP!!!)

What's up everybody,

First off let me say I'm almost completely clueless when it comes to cars. I was given a 1992 Pontiac Sunbird LE for free this past Sunday. It's a 4 cylinder automatic with about 115K on it.

There's an oil leak in the engine, I think it's the valve cover gasket, and the temperature gauge is broken. May need a new thermostat. Beyond that I haven't come across any other engine problems. I haven't looked closely but the muffler/exhaust pipe area looks pretty chewed up with rust, may need replacing.

The paint has some decent sized sunspots, and there is a small dent on the rear driver's side fender. The driver's side door gets stuck closed unless I slam it shut in which case it opens fine. Haven't seen a lot of rusting or decay on the body at all.

The interior is fairly jacked up. Dirty, obviously, but the driver's seat is a little torn, and the cloth on the ceiling is coming down. There is a lot of duct tape on the light controls on the left of the steering wheel, and a piece covering the anti-lock break light on the dash; no idea why. There is a pretty big hole where it looks like the dash should come down and form a seam against the radio; possibly just warped and popped out of place.

So here's what I would like to do:
> get the engine fixed up first, make sure the thing is running well and will keep doing so for a substantial amount of time.
> repaint it, pop out the dent, possibly get the driver's side door fixed.
> I don't care about speed performance at all, but adding mods to make it run better and longer I would like to do, I just don't know what they would be beyond better plugs and a better battery.
> Eventually, if it looks like it'll stay on the road, I'd like to add a body kit
> Rims would definitely be nice
> Fix the seat, roof cloth, dash
> Possibly a CD player but not really interested in a massive sub or anything.

SO the major question is do you think I should do any of that? It was free, and it's already 16 years old, so I'm not worried about resale in the least. I am, however, concerned with putting that much money into the thing only to have it fall to pieces in a year or less.

Should I go the rout of rebuilding the engine or just fixing up the one it's got and modifying it?

I'm a community college student right now, and may end up going to a 4 year next fall, or waiting until fall 2010, so I want to do what I can but not end up leaving behind or taking with me a half finished car. Also, I only make about $240 every two weeks part time, so it's not like I'll get anything better anytime soon, but it's also not like I'll be fixing this thing up rapidly.

Again, I know I wrote a lot but I wanted to be thorough. Please help this young car owner figure out what to do! THANKS!!!

[wafrederick]

If it is the 2.0,it is a Brazilian made engine that is a huge POS.Parts are hard to get for this engine.Parts for this engine have been being discontinued.