My GF just picked up a 97. I know nothing about them
 

So my girlfriend decided that she needed her own car. I'm thinking oh, awesome I don't always have time to let her borrow my car and my racecar is down for now so I don't have something to drive if we both need to go places. Anyway, a friend of hers was willing to sell her his for $800, she bought it without me being there. On Wednesday I finally got a chance to look at it. Long story short, the title is clean, there's front end damage. PS fluid is low, pass strut tower is squeaking and clunking, coolant has a leak somewhere, I've got an EGR code, and she has no idea when the car was serviced last. It's unfortunately an autotragic and I nothing about the transmissions in these. Took it for a drive and it had a tendency to shift hard under load, and shift up/down on hills a lot. I haven't checked the trans fluid yet but if it's going to cause me issues I kind of want to just do a manual swap on it and replace the trans. I'll be spending a lot of time in here searching but if anyone has suggestions on where to look and what to look for I'll take them! I was going to start junk yard hunting for replacement parts to save her some money and just make it safe to drive for now while teaching her what to look for without wrecking her daily. Is there anything I should avoid picking up in yards and just drop the cash to buy from a parts store?