I'm no expert. I do recall being in the same situation you're in, though. Do I buy a donor and swap it all over? Or do I find what I need at a junkyard? Those are mostly picked over here, and mainly have newer vehicles. Do I buy a kit? Granted, this was about 16 years ago.
So I bought the kit from CPP. I thought it was a great way to go. And then the unboxing of items. This kit was engineered, if you will, around using your stock suspension. The calipers were good. The spindles were too, along with rotors, dust back plates or whatever they're called. Everything else was metric and of poor quality. The ball joints, the nuts maybe caught 40% of the threads. First bump in the road and they would have failed. Got new Moog ball joints. Stock upper, 73-87 lower.
Tie rods, sleeves, poor quality and metric. The sleeve wouldn't thread onto the stock inner tie rods because of the metric thread pitch. So I got new outer tie rods for 73-87, and new inner stock tie rods and used my stock sleeves.
The bearings were no good. New 73-87 bearings purchased. The brake hoses they provided were wrong, had to get special ones made but you make it work with the correct brake hoses for whatever 73-87 truck. You'll have to match up the ends. I'm assuming you're going power disc brakes? If going power disc, try and find a kit that provides the proper mounting for the booster.
You can take many different approaches to see this to fruition. When I say stock, I mean parts made the year vehicle you have.
I don't know anything about drop spindles or the various control arm manufacturers. You may need different control arms if you drop it? I prefer my trucks to sit at stock height and have full function of being a truck. Hopefully someone else will help with drop spindles and lowering your truck.
You can use your stock control arms if leaving it stock height or going with a mild drop, but you need the 73-87 lower ball joints, spindles, outer tie rods, etc.
Swapping in power steering, if there is a kit, go that route. But I have read of others doing the swap without one.
