I'm a little late to the party here but I agree picking up a premade one is the quickest route by far. The last one I installed even had all the circuits labelled on the wires(!!) and the taillight wires were long enough I could have put tail lights on a 747 if I'd cared to.
I put the fuse panel on my 49 up under the driver's side cowl like you're thinking, works and its out of the way. No worse than any other vehicle out there.
Good luck! I enjoy wiring.
