I spent the afternoon running around town. I first took the battery from the 280 into Autozone, hoping it would be able to take a charge. Of course it didn't, so I ended up buying the cheapest battery I could. I also picked up a siphon kit and a gas can so I could drain the tank a bit.
I got some new gas, put some in the car, along with the new battery, and tried to fire it up.
It took a few cranks but if finally started to catch. It started up, and with some nursing stayed running. After bout 3-4 minutes of missing it seemed to clean up and run quite a bit better. I let it sit for probably 10 minutes total running, gave it a few runs up through the tach to see how the motor seemed to be. There's definitely a few vavles making noise, but overall I'm happy with it running.
I really wanted to take it for a quick spin around the neighborhood to see how the transmission is, that's really what I'm interested in besides the front body work. If the transmission works well it'll go on the L28ET motor and then into the 73 240. I didn't drive it today, I'm worried there aren't any brakes! Perhaps I'll hook the e-brake back up and see if I can't take it down the road to a parking lot just to test out the transmission a bit tomorrow.