I hear you on the grinder, I was taking it slow for the first 20 min to make sure that I wasn't going to find that it was so rusty that I was ripping the seam out. It should progress a lot faster next time.
I am waiting on the sheet metal and some other parts, I will hopefully drive up to Classic Heartbeat to pick up my order this weekend. I had to buy my inner rocker with floor extensions from summit (Tri-plus). They arrived in 2 days, amazing.
In the meantime I started cleaning up the chassis. It is filthy. I have removed at least a cat food bag's worth of dirt, gravel, and oil. I also removed the old saddle tanks and valves/fuel lines (which included the exhaust). I then took an inventory of what needed replacing, I like spreadsheets, so I put it all in there and won't bore you with tables and priorities.
I may have gotten a little carried away on the suspension. It was by far the dirtiest part of the truck, and as I dug into it- the more I realized it needed. For the steering it needed new outer tie rods and a pitman arm, everything else looked pretty good. The springs are all sagging, or they were heated to create a drop, so those will need replacing.
See if you can guess what impulse upgrades I have been working on...
