[PLYONS11]

I have completed the conversion to a 1/2ton 12bolt coil setup in the rear and now I am moving to the front. Currently I have coil springs in the rear, but will likely bag it sooner or later. I did a 4-5" drop in the rear.

I have read through many threads about control arms and swapping a later model cross member in. I don't know that I want to go to all that trouble. Though I like to save money, my time is also at a premium and it seems easier to just buy new parts. My junk yards here aren't the best. It took me almost a full year to find a 71' 12 bolt locally. I just don't have the time to constantly be hiking around junk yards to find the whole cross member from a later model truck.

I would like to buy new drop spindles and a disk brake conversion kit to go from 8 bolt to 5 bolt to match the rear. I have also considered tubular control arms (still on the fence). I would like to have a setup that I can easily get replacement parts for. My major question is are the control arms on the 3/4 ton and 1/2 ton the same set up? Will the tubular control arms from CPP or others bolt to the 3/4 ton?

I spoke with CPP about this and they said that the control arms on a 3/4 are different than the 1/2 and they wont bolt on. The guy told me he was not aware of any company that made a set of control arms that would work. His advise was to just use the stock arms that I have and buy drop spindles to match. I'm not completely opposed to that, but as I have spend the money on a tubular setup in the rear, I figured I might want to make it match up front. Also not sure that I can put bags on the 3/4 ton setup.

I guess what I'm looking for is an answer to this: If I don't want to replace the cross member but will be replacing everything outwards of the CM, what do I need and is it possible to buy all aftermarket parts without going crazy expensive? I have looked at Porterbuilt, but that seems to get a bit pricey for me when looking at the whole setup with tubular control arms. I'd like to keep it under 2500 for everything including the disk brake conversion, but less the airbags. For the time being I would like to drive the truck lowered with coil springs and see how it feels.

The front disk conversion I would like to find will include slip on rotors and be compatible with some type of wildwood caliper. I am using the dynalite setup in the rear as I currently don't have a parking brake. I believe the rear caliper is a D154?