Absolutely do not part it out. That will maximize and solidify your financial loss immediately.

To minimize financial loss, if you want out of it, your best bet is to clean it up pretty and try to sell it as-is...drivable. You might not be as bad off as you think you are. A driveable 69, "fair to good"? Presumably it looks/cloned like something BETTER than a "basic 350?" Does this mean it looks like a 400? If you got all that, then heck, $9K doesn't sound too awful bad to me! You might have actually done OK on this purchase...just didn't get the steal you hoped for.

Or, as it seems you intend to do, there's not a thing wrong with just patching it and driving it...and enjoy it. As long as you don't have structural issues that are true safety items, like the car is going to crack in half on you, then patching and driving and enjoying will be well worth your price of admission.

Restoring one of these cars almost NEVER makes any financial sense at all...unless you do it all yourself and consider your labor time to be free. Even then, parts and materials alone will cause you to probably break even at best.

To get the best bang for your buck on ANY classic/antique car purchase, you gotta buy the car DONE. Fully restored, and PROPERLY restored/researched/documented. Those cars are the best deals out there, unless you have a true love for the work that goes into doing it yourself. Few people have that love.

Just recognize that your current $9K is not 100% lost, only a small portion of it MIGHT be. And that portion is simply written off as "tuition" for the education you just received in the process of making this purchase and researching it later.

We've all spent "tuition" at some point in our lives, whether related to our cars or not...write it off and move on. Enjoy the car! Post up some pics! It's OK to skip photos of the hidden bad parts...we don't care...