One of the front spindles was rather worn (from a long-ago spun bearing). I had restored and installed it a couple of years ago anyway, but I had been keeping my eyes out for a replacement. Last year at Hershey I had bought a couple of potential replacement spindles, and last week I decided to install one. So I chose the best one, cleaned, bead-blasted, and painted it, and installed the kingpin bushings. Then I took apart the right front axle, removed the old spindle, and installed the new one. This was a quick and easy job, since I was not dealing with 70-year-old filthy rusty parts.
I also installed most of the 40 or so cotter pins in various nuts and bolts in the chassis. I had not bothered with them when I originally assembled the chassis, since I figured I would probably end up having to remove and replace most of them before the car was finished. Since I had to remove the wheels to reach some of them, I also double-checked and adjusted the brakes. Dealing with the cotter pins was helped by the fact that there is a published list of the size and location of every single cotter pin in the car.
At this point, I felt brave enough to actually drive the car on the road, despite the lack of the fenders and hood. I took it on 3 or 4 trips of several miles each. I even went to a gas station and got most of a tank of gas. It ran reasonably well, and the brakes and steering were fine, but the lack of shocks made it pretty bouncy. Hitting bumps while going around a corner on a narrow road could get sort of exciting. There was also more vibration than I expected around 40-45 MPH, and at one point the horn cover fell off and I had to go back later and search for it on the side of the road. Fortunately I found it, and it did not get damaged.