I am looking for suggestions as to what to do next.

I have been working on a body off for the last year and a half.
I have done the following:
Repainted the chassis
Had trailings arms rebuilt
Redone whole suspension
rebuilt brakes and replaces lines
replaced fuel lines and hoses
mostly installed steeroids
replaced all u-joints and diff seals

The interior of the car was completely stripped out by the previous owner (i have most of it except the carpets) and the body is currently on a frame up in the air, it also needs a new paint job, the existing paint seems to have little bubbles/blisters in the clearcoat.

I plan to replace the engine, transmission at some point. I was thinking of buying an engine in a fairly complete state, possibly turnkey.

I am trying to decide if I should do the new engine now now, and then attempt to get the body on and everything in to get it driving. Or if I should drop the body and start working on the interior, get that pretty much finished.
The problem I see is that i doubt I'll be able to get the car up and running and then the whole interior in within the warranty period on the engine. I don't know if just starting up the engine in the garage with frame off is going to be enough to discover any problems with it or if i will actually need to be able to drive it to find problems in the first 12 months. I also don't know what the likelihood of having issues with a new engine is and if i will even need the warranty.

One other possibility is to put everything back together with the existing engine and tranny and get the whole car drivable with that and then go back and do new engine +tranny later. Not sure what its going to take to get the existing engine running again though. It has not run in about 9 years (6 with previous owner and 3 with me)

I have no previous experience with working on cars so this is all a first time experience for me.

Any suggestions. as to which route, sequence i should do things in, other ideas?

Thanks

 

Put the new motor in the chasis first, .... your back will thank me later !
then put the body on, then paint, then install the interior. 69VETT