Since I know no one's reading this thread anyway, I didn't take any pictures for today's update.
Last night I ran over and started torquing the rear axle in. Then came the driveshaft, the rear brake hard line and the e-brake cable. David came up and helped me bleed the brakes, at which point we realized that you need to have the drums on to bleed them
After re-assembling the rear wheel cylinders, we finished bleeding the brakes and put the wheels back on.
At this time, I realized that my throttle linkage was binding on something, so after franticly looking around the back of the carb, I realized that one of the bolts I used for the fluid heat riser was a bit too long and was interfering with the carb linkage. Took the carb off, cut off the top of the bolt and had it back together in no time flat.
I fired her up for the first time in a month and she ran great. I let it warm up for a while to burn off the excess paint / oil / whatever off of the headers, and after the smoke subsided, I took her for a spin. No noticable vibrations, but without shocks, everything is a vibration. On top of that, I have no idea if the tires are balanced, so that may be something as well. Either way, I DROVE IT!!!
Couple of things I need to address. First, the brake master cylinder is bad. I loose pressure as I'm pressing on the brakes coming to a stop, and I'm not leaking anywhere. Ordered a
new one 10 minutes ago. The friction zone for the clutch is way too small and it engages right next to the floor. We didn't mess with the clutch and it was fine before, so I need to see what's up with that. The steering is wicked loosed and misaligned. I need to try tightening the adjustment screw on the steering box to see if it'll tighten up. I checked and there is no play in the steering column at the lower u-joint and there is no play from the pitman arm to the high steer arms, so the box is the culprit. Finally, the e-brake doesn't work. It seems that the brake cannot pull the cable far enough to engage the drums, but the cables on the inside of the drums may be bad, causing this. Need to investigate that as well.
As soon as I read Mike's billie 7100 shock review, I will probably order those for the front and some 5125's for the rear. Shocks and modifying the transmission crossmember are next up in line.