Finally, it was determined we were ready to see If the beast would run. I crawled underneath, and clicked the transmission into neutral, so we could get fluid flowing through the fresh 727 right away. Boone rolled the starter over a few times and hit the ignition. It kicked back on the starter so hard I was sure it had broken it. Same result the second and third time.
"Good grief Dale, pull some out of it!" I admonished.
"Should have been closer than that", he shook his head.
He had to back it off 2 more times, to get it right, and by then the starter sounded horrible.
Finally it fired to life, and he set the idle to hold the desired rpm, as we still had no carb linkage. After only 4 minutes, I gave Boone the kill sign.
"What'd you do that for!" Dale gave me an inquisitive look.
"You are burning the plug wire clamp on the front header", I pointed out on the passenger's side.
One of Boone's biggest complaints throughout this entire build was that Dale, in his effort to have everything fit perfect, cuts everything too short, plug wires, wiring, fluid lines, everything. This was a case where the plug wires had no slack to allow how far he had to retard the timing to get it running.
Dale tugged on them enough to get it away from the header, and grumbled, "I'm going to have to move that gear a tooth, so they will fit right!"
"How long did it run?" Dale asked.
"4:26 to 4:30, only 4 minutes", I answered.
"4:30? Dang it! I've got to go pick up the Gremlin!"
He jumped in his truck, and headed off to town without another word. Boone got out, and started cleaning up around the shop, which is what he usually did when he wasn't sure what to do.
"Boone, let's get some time on the cam!"
"Well...Dale.."
It drives me crazy when both he and Darren constantly defer to Dale, and lean on him for everything mechanical. They are more than capable, it's just became a habit. We fired the 508 to life, and Boone checked over the gauges. The Barnyard only has 4 gauges in the dash, 2 2 5/8" mechanical gauges in the middle, oil pressure and water temp. , then a 2" inch electrical gauge on each side of those. 1 is for fuel, the second says "oil temp", but it has 3 separate sensors running to a 3 position toggle, allowing him to choose between engine oil temp, trans fluid temp, and a back-up water temp. He was giving it a work-out for the next 13 minutes as we ran the cam in.

Darren made his grand entrance a few minutes later, and crawled under the Charger to install the fuel tank. He immediately began to find fault with the work Dad had done.
"The traction bar is rubbing the inside of the tire! I told him to check for that, darn it!" He started pulling the tires off as another guy I'd never met walked up.
"This is my co-worker Eric", Darren introduced him, "He decided to lend a hand tonight".

I thought to myself that it was a good thing he brought reinforcements, because he definitely needed all he could get!

Note: This pic of the Barnyard's interior is much later in the week, at this point on Friday afternoon, it still had no throttle, no steering column, no mirrors, no headliner, no shifter and no driver's door!