35 years of sitting still it's time to change that. What to do now?

[Lord Warlock]

Yes I'm guilty, I'm one of those people that bought a car as a teenager, and put it in a garage and kind of ignored it for way too long, it was one of those "I'm gonna fix it up someday" cars, and refusing to sell it because it had an emotional hold on me of my youth.  It was the first car I bought myself with paper route earnings, it ferried me to school my senior year in High school, and the last 4 years of college, then got parked in favor of something newer to drive across country in.  While it was in serving me in college, I managed to blow up the original 440 thru oil starvation when the oil pump drive shaft snapped while doing 70 on the interstate. I put in a 383, transplanted my heads, and managed to duplicate the same demise several years later.  I then bought a 2nd 69 charger R/T (triple dark green) that lost a battle with a telephone pole, and pulled the engine and transmission from that car, and transplanted it in my car.  I figured it was the closest I would ever come to an original motor, and didn't want to trash it again, so sidelined the car for future endeavors.    

From December to May of this year, I finally buckled down and started doing serious work to bring her back to the world of the living.  I got all of the body work done, finished the paint job, got all the glass back in, interior is in, have new 17 inch wheels and tires, new trunk floor, new rotors and calipers in the front, new axles and drum brakes in the rear.  Took down the original bumpers off the wall and put those back on, front needs a rechrome but rear is serviceable for now.  

In the Spring, I broke down the engine bay to clean things up, taking the radiator, fans, water pump, intake and carb, and valve covers off, repainted them and put it back together.  

NOW, I need to focus on the motor, the electricals, the vacuum headlights etc, basically everything in front of the firewall.  Before I started work on it last Christmas, the engine had been started and run  for about 30 minutes from a gas can running to the fuel pump.  (didn't trust the gas in the tank at the time) So I know the engine should run once we hook everything back up, it may not run well but it runs on all 8 cylinders and sounds healthy despite having cobwebs where they don't belong.  But it is time to get the beast started and running again.  

What should I do first? fluids and oil has already been drained.  New fuel lines are installed from new tank to engine.  Should I put gas in the tank and get it through the lines? what gas should I use? It is totally original 440 magnum with 69k original miles on it, with the exception of a performer 750cfm carb.  No headers, all factory manifolds from engine to tips.  There are places in town to buy Sunoco 260 gas, I do remember that the car ran very nice with 98 octane or higher fuel in it, but is there a real need for the stock 440 to need better than 93 octane unleaded in it? Should I bring it out of the shadows with real fuel? or stick to the cheap pump stuff? I do not expect the car to be raced in the future, a few drops in gear or run to 100 or so at most.  I have other cars that are much faster and handle much better so don't plan on abusing the charger much, but I do want to drive it, possibly to work on a nice day or to the weekend gathering spots.  Will also occasionally do a burnout, can't deny I've missed that over the years.  When adding an electric choke, where do you draw power from, the coil, or the alternator?

Fuel line from pump to carb is new, trans linkage is in place, kickdown lever is set appropriately, not that I expect to use it anytime soon, but it all appears to be put in place.  I put a new wiring harness on from the firewall junction box to the alternator, AC is disconnected and off the car for now, that is a worry for a different day.  

At the current time, I have tons of time on my hands, and little to no money to spend on new parts, necessities yes, but no extras.  Should I stick with the stock manual fuel pump? it has always seemed to work fine, but it also hasn't run for more than an hour at a time in 35 years.  If the car was running before, do I need to set the timing on it? yes the distributor has come out and back in.  What steps would you recommend in restarting a long long stored car? At least the rear axles aren't rusted stuck anymore.

Also, since the transmission (727 torqueflight) hasn't been used in so long, is there something I need to do with it? should I drain the fluid in the transmission and change it? even though it looks clean on the stick) trans fluid changes are always a messy affair with no drain plug. Figured I could take it to jiffy lube after I got it running and let them do it, but I do worry about the converter and internals having dried out over a long term storage.  The years between startups probably didn't help either.  Last time it actually moved the car was in 2006 when I built a garage and actually backed it from front garage to back garage under its own power.

This car deserves to come out of the shadows and to see daylight again.  It isn't quite complete yet, but its almost there (get to climb in trunk and tighten trim pieces down first, but you get the idea) I'll have to take down part of the privacy fence to get it out of the backyard, but I'll deal with that when the time comes.  

What do you suggest? what does it need? It has had a decent life in storage, but that isn't what the car was designed for, and it really needs to see asphalt again.  I'd really like to have one bright spot on 2014 to offset all the other crap I've had to deal with this year.