thanks for the tips but I just made my own studs out of a couple of 5-1/2" grade 10 bolts. One end had about 2" of fine thread so I went to my machinist at work and he chucked it up in one of the lathes and wacked the head off and put another 1.5 inches of fine thread on there. Then flipped it around and put about 1.5 inch of coarse thread on the other end...instant 5" stud...took about 10 minutes for two.
I must confess I didn't order new rear springs

, but since I had the free 63" chevy springs already in there I tossed the 3.5" flactory block back in... this will have to do until the truck fund gets out of debt. So the front settled about 1/4" or so but it may do more after driving. I have a set of add-a-leaves from the old packs that I could put in there but don't want to ruin the flex of the flat 63's. So I was thinking about wacking the ends off of the add-a-leaf and making a long zero rate and putting it at the bottom of the pack. I need to think about this some more though.
I got my brake lines today and started trying to source drive shaft stretchers. No luck though the cheapest I found to add 1.5" was $125. But I can buy 1.5" of tube for about $5. So I may build an alignment jig out of 2x2 angle , cut my current shaft and weld in the new piece then balance it, not sure how well this will balance though. Second option is to buy a shaft from junk yard and grind the yoke out and re-weld it in the end, but then I would have to buy another shaft. The front shaft I plan on using an old K-5 shaft out of a truck with the NP-208... I'll let you know how that turns out, but I think it might just be the right length.
I have a pair of 316SS 5/8" hiem ends that I'll use in my draglink, but I need to get a new pitman arm thats dropped first...hoping to source that in a junk yard too.
I sure you like to do a 440 swap, I thought the winch would help squish the front too though, and lastly, I don't have my camera this week so pics will have to wait until next week.
Dave