First start, good news and bad news [John]

This morning we installed the rebuilt carburetor, reinstalled plugs after a compression check (not great, not terrible), and cranked it up. The engine started immediately, blowing a good deal of smoke as we expected. 

Steering wheel was very difficult to turn in the garage. We found the fluid reservoir empty -- easy to cure, but not a good sign. A quart and a half of fluid made the steering work, which was good enough to support a drive around the block. 

I eased it out of the garage and around the block I went. Brakes work, transmission is weird. Hard to tell when it does that automatic upshift in L; more apparent in D. Linkage is sloppy -- took several tries to get it into reverse, but eventually I got it to back up.

Pretty day today. Sometimes it's worth it to live in Southern California. 

We put the car back in the garage and noticed a few things:

• Gear selection is very iffy. We'll need to find the sloppiness and address that, at least. Maybe the transmission and overdrive (wiki says it's really an underdrive) are OK.
• Accelerator pedal and linkage is sticky. Holds the throttle up off idle unless you pull the pedal up. At low idle speed, the engine dies. 
• To no one's surprise, the power steering fluid has made an even distribution of drips across the driveway, and at least a quart of it is on the garage floor below the steering box. I knew there was a reason for the empty reservoir.
• Cranks very slowly after 10 minutes of driving. Dash ammeter shows 0, and there is 4V across the battery terminals, engine idling or revving, and 2V across the generator terminals. Looks like there's no output at all from the generator.
• Headlights work, turn signals work, stop light doesn't work, horn is missing, gas gauge is optimistic (claims 2 gallons is a full tank). Oil pressure gauge shows reasonable output. Radio doesn't work. 
• Can't back it up: hard to get it in reverse, and if you do, it might refuse to go forward again. Also, no side mirrors.
• No license plate brackets. We will need those soon.

Well, it is a project after all. Wouldn't want to finish it in a day anyway.