I have a 52 GMC 3/4 ton and I'd like to do the same thing. The half-century old front end handles very badly on imperfect highways, but when I switched to 2002 GMC Yukon 8-lug wheels, the ride improved dramatically from that alone. Anyway, I thought that to preserve the nice chrome 8-lugs and the stance, I need to search for a similar donor vehicle with 8-lug rotors. With all the SUV's out there, I should be able to find something from the past decade or so in a salvage yard. The suspension would be heavy duty enough and the springs should already be about right. There'd be some fabrication work to get the upper control arms mounted to the frame though. I'll probably attack that when I get my 407 Chevy small block ready to drop in.
In the meantime, I'll live with it and be a little careful.
