I've had my 74 for about a year now and has been a good driver with no real issues so far. I've spent this winter rebuilding interior areas that were missing and/or worn. Going to hold off on engine swap for another year or so as the original motor is fine for now.
What I want to focus on now is suspension and underbody that I sense hasn't had much attention in years
I want to think that a 43 year old car needs every suspension item replaced. But how should I approach this - focus on front suspension first and then rear later or are there certain areas/items that are obvious places to do first because they historically cause problems ?

I will likely pay someone to do this work as I'm not sure I'm confident in my abilities to pull off this kind of work. Am I looking at big bucks in labor ?

 

It all depends which suspension package you get. If you get just a monoleaf and shocks that is pretty simple in the rear. The front needs a little more work to take the spindle off for the new springs and shock. Coil overs probably would be a little more expensive.

 

Do the front suspension first all you steering, springs, shocks and bushings. Can't steer, can't drive the car. Then move onto the rear.

 

I'd do the front 1st. If the ball joints are riveted it's going to cost more to replace.

If your not replacing the front spring it shouldn't be to bad.

How is the steering box? Do you have a lot of play in the steering wheel?

 

I just got done rebuilding the rear and front suspension on my 77 if you take you're time and go slow it's not that hard to do.The worst thing was safely removing the coil front springs ,but one of the members here suggested the 5/8 rod trick and it worked great.Getting the front bushings out was hard ,but if you don't have the tools to remove them,I have a air chisel, you can take them off and take them to any garage and have them put new ones in for you.You can buy all the parts from a auto parts store unless you want high performance stuff.

 

If you do work on the front suspension, get it ALL redone and do the steering and brake work at the same time. Tearing into that area ONCE is the only thing that makes sense.

A-arm bushings; ball joints; steering knuckles [that NEED it]; sway bar bushings and strut rods; flex coupling in steering [ragjoint] if deteriorated; shock absorbers [Bilstein's if you plan on keeping the car a long time--generic gas shocks if not]. Make sure brake calipers are SS sleeved; rotors turned (DO NOT replace them if they have adequate materisl); REPLACE RUBBER LINES TO CALIPERS; flush brake lines and rebuild master cylinder; quality brake pads chosen for how you will use them. Also do any work NEEDED for power steering system. If only leaks, just replace the hoses.

In back the main work is to remove the trailing arms and have them rebuilt or exchanged with rebuilt units. Also replace T/A bushings (use quality rubber bushings, IMO), strut-rod bushings, and shocks to match front ones. Replace fluid and posi-trac additive in differential. Service calipers/brakes the same as up front.

Which "end" you do first depends on which end has the most "slop".

If you are having this work done by a shop, have all the front end stuff done together so that you don't duplicate labor costs...over, and over, and over.