While the crew of The Build still has quite a bit of work to do on their 1965 Malibu SS before it’s ready to hit the street, this week they celebrated a great milestone when it comes to rebuilding any classic car. Check out what this milestone is in the above.

That’s right boys and girls- the crew of The Build have officially put the rebuilt engine on the Malibu’s frame. But don’t get too excited. She’s far from ready to rock and roll, let alone even bolted in yet, but still its a milestone worth celebrating for sure!

To make things a little easier down the line, the American Modern crew attached the Muncie transmission’s bell housing directly to the engine before dropping it onto the frame.

This way the rest of the transmission can be bolted up easily to the bell housing rather than having to struggle to bolt the transmission directly onto the engine from underneath the car when all is said and done. But putting the engine onto the frame revealed a few issues that had to be fixed.

The first issue is that the revised frame for the Malibu initially came from an automatic GTO. Because of this, it didn’t have a Z-bar bracket, something essential when using a manual transmission and a clutch pedal.

To remedy this, the American Modern crew welded in a brand new bracket.

The other issue is that the transmission brackets on the frame turned out to be wrong on the car (probably due to being aftermarket from the GTO), putting them in the wrong place for the car’s factory Muncie transmission.

To remedy this, Claims Specialist Rick Drewry is planning to make his own transmission brackets to replace the ones already on the frame.

Like we said, it’s a big day on any build for the engine to finally be put back on the frame. Congratulations goes out to the crew of The Build for getting this far and we look forward to seeing what’s in store next for the classic Malibu!