[thecatseye66]

Originally Posted by TugOwar

In a perfect world a complete, late model crossmember swap would be my preference. But I imagine it involves pulling the engine, and probably the whole front clip just to get to the necessary nuts and bolts. I'm a one man show without an engine crane.

...

Now if later model SPINDLES would swap out to my original A-frames/ball joints, THAT would be awesome and easy.

You don't have to pull the engine to do the crossmember swap. Just jack, hoist or lift the frame and unbolt the entire linkage with it. You have to lift or jack from the front framehorns while you support the crossmember with a floor jack. Give a buddy a beer to help you steer the jack when you actually remove and replace the crossmember.

The spindles don't swap because of the turn-stops and tie-rod end differences with the older steering linkage as well as one of the ball-joints from the 73-91 spindles doesn't fit in the adjacent socket in the a-arm.

You also have to make sure you have the 71/2 booster to go with the new disc/drum master cylinder and decide where to locate the proportioning valve and that all the brake lines work out okay. Some trucks had the brakelines running in back in the older years but the newers run across the front. The original 3/4 ton 67-70 double diaphram booster will not work with the disc/drum m/c.

I've done a couple of these and you can pull it off alone, with air tools in two days. If you gave it two weekends you'd have time to get the tools and paint you forgot buy beforehand.