welp, checking in to see the progress. looks like you're right on track so far. im going to chime in with what I did, (not that it was the right thing to do, just the way i did)
I cant drill a hole straight to save my life. when I did my SR, I when ahead and rented a magnetic drill press. granted I was only drilling two holes, i wanted to make sure they were straight--the first time. it was about $8oish for the day for the press, but it made quick work of the holes and im glad i did. you got 3 axis' to contended with and by using the press, i had nothing to worry about. if you're not familar with it, its got an electro-magnet base so if you have a metal surface for the base to stick to, you can drill upside down if need be. I think there is a picture of it some where in one of the SOA links somewhere. anyway, if you can drill a hole and your not a lamer like me, you should have no problem.
I was on a budget too and It took me a while to gather all the parts and funds to *finish* my junk.
seeing the pic of the grinder on the axle brings back such fond memories. to this day, I dont care if I never have to grind anything ever again after this project. point being, I didnt feel comfortable doing the c&t myself so I sent my front axle to kurt to have him do it. a month or so before I did, I ran across a thread where he said he would do the c&t for like $1oo. granted, I had to take everything (and I mean everything) off the axle which was a lot of work with the grinder, i thought that was a killer deal. im not sure how close you are to his shop, but I ended up shipping with fed ex freight and it was only like $16 bucks from CA.
another thing we did when we did our SR, was take a peice of 1/2" x 1 peice of wood I had laying around in my garage and used that as a gauge to measure where to drill the hole. IIRC it was about 43" center to center between the shackle hanger and the spring perch--dont bend it or anything, just use as a guide if you're planning on moving your axle forward for when you drill the hole for the SR.
something else I did was box my frame and pushed the hanger all the way out front of the extended frame. also, I flipped the springs. I know you were not sure if you were going to do that cause of the ps, but I thought I would throw this in if you did decide to do that sag ps at the same time. anyway, back to the point on the SR, IF you do extend the frame and SR, you're hole for the shackle will end up about half in, half out of one of the holes on the inner side of the frame. we measured the size of the hole, used a hole saw for the corresponding measurement and made a plug to fill the hole. we then welded and then used the mag press to drill the hole for the SR. ended up working well. I modeled my set up to dustins and when he did his SR, he has his shackle hanger half in, half out of that same frame hole. IE, he didnt make the plug.
when resetting up all the perches for the front axle, I found a profile gauge to help on the diff side of the front axle.
http://www.culttvman.com/assets/images-TRADE_SECRETS/dmdovepart502.JPG
were you doing to do disks while all this was going on... just curious, even with my set up disks in the front with such large heavy tires is better than drums, but I need to get disks in the rear soon. its a lot of weight on there.
mike
told ya i'd be busy as hell when i got this new job
