Excessive play in steering wheel

If you have any plans to swap it to big bolt pattern disc brakes, now may be the time to do it. The upper control arms and upper ball joints are different on the 73 and up stuff, so doing that now would save you from having to turn around and buy new upper ball joints and bushings for different upper control arms. Just something to think about to save added expense down the road if you were going to add disc brakes.