your thoughts ? 17"-18" wheels with 10" rear drum brakes ?

See since it's a 62 it has tappered rear axles. finding 11" rear brake drums and backing plates, would not be easy or cheap.

ohhhh that’s a good point. Sorry I forgot about the tapered axle deal. Honestly you’d probably be better off looking for a 65+ B body 8 3/4 than trying to find different brakes for that axle. Heck you might even find one with 11” drums already.

What are you running for brakes up front? Have you converted those to the later disk stuff?