That’s the end of the story, but chances are you’re still back at the beginning, with your car in a million pieces all over your shop. If you’ve been following our procedure from the beginning, you’ve carefully photographed everything before you disassembled, you carefully sorted and labeled your hardware, you had everything cleaned, crack-checked, coated, painted, plated, and rebuilt as necessary. Now it’s all back from the shops and it’s time for you to put it all back together.

If you’re lucky, you’ve got a factory assembly manual for the car, or a correct example to work from, or at least a really good set of notes. If you’re not lucky (like most of us), you’re going on common sense and a fervent hope that you don’t have too many parts left over when you’re done.

The main thing to remember as you assemble your car is that all the investment you’ve made so far will be enhanced or wasted based on the work you do at this point. So take it slowly, be sure of what you’re doing, and be ready to redo things if necessary to get them right.

Virtually all resources will tell you to start by putting the suspension onto the frame of the car. That’s good advice, because then you have a moveable platform on which to assemble the rest of the vehicle. You should also install any hard lines for the brakes, clutch, or fuel system at this time, and any wiring harnesses that are easier to install before the body goes on.

Much of your assembly order will depend on whether your car is a uni-body (also called monocoque) design or body-on-frame. If your car is a body-on-frame design, you can usually install the entire engine and drivetrain easily before the bodywork goes on. This is a big advantage because it’s so easy to damage paint and bodywork and especially engine bay paint and sheet metal when you’re manhandling an engine and transmission into place. The increased access afforded by not having the body on the car also means it’s easier to install the driveshaft and potentially the fuel tank and lines.

If you have a unibody car, you’ve got more problems. Because the body and fenders are likely to be an integrated whole, you need to rethink the usual order of assembly and make sure it works for you. For example, you may find (depending on the specific make and model) that it’s much easier to install the wiring harness and all hydraulic and fuel system lines before you clutter up the engine bay and transmission tunnel with the engine and transmission.

Certain monocoque designs such as the GM F-Body (Chevrolet Camaro and Pontiac Firebird and Trans-Am) use a body/chassis design with a detachable front frame segment and separable front fenders and fascia. This allows you to install an engine and transmission without worrying about hitting the fenders or engine bay, but in a more traditional unibody design (found on many foreign sports cars since the 1950s) you have to be careful and work around the fenders to install the drivetrain. You also have to do a good bit of the work (such as installing the driveshaft) from the underside of the car.

But once you’ve got the main guts of the car installed and the bodywork on, you can move on to the interior. By now your wiring harness should be installed, and you can start making all the connections under the dash. Wherever possible, I like to attach ground wires first, because it’s so easy to miss a single ground wire when everything else is attached and the space behind the dash becomes limited. You can also run wires for interior lights and door-operated switches more easily now than later. When you’ve got all your wiring and ductwork finished, you can go ahead and install the carpet, headliner, and your interior panels. Finally, install your seats, seat belts, and trim pieces. Only then do the doors go onto the car.

Doors can pose several special problems. I like to assemble doors completely and then install them as a unit. But assembled doors are heavy and often difficult to align. I use a good floor jack, well-padded with towels, to hold up the free end of the door while I find the right combination of shims, adjustments, and striker plate orientation to get the door to fit well with the other bodywork, open easily and shut smoothly.

After the interior is assembled, it’s safe to work on windshield glass and rear window glass. I leave these for close to last because it’s often easier to get at the dashboard and headliner areas if you have access through the windows.

Last of all, install the hood, trunk lid, and the exterior bumpers and trim. Don’t get excited towards the end of the process and rush things! Trim goes on last, but it’s very easy to damage, or it can slip and scratch your paint, so take your time right to the very end.

You can reasonably expect to spend weeks on a careful assembly, so don’t leave it to the day before you want to use the car. Also, be aware that you’ll need to have the steering aligned, brakes tested and bedded in, and probably 100 other shakedown problems to fix before the car is really and truly finished.