HI and Welcome,I am 30 miles north of you in Pasco
85 stepside for daily driver/88-440 truck for weekend cruzer.
I use a 1/4" drill bit to drill into the head of rivit frame deep,then swap to a 1/2 drill bit and drill it out again. then take an airchisel and cave the head in on itself and drive the rivit out.
or drill all 4 rivets/chisel head off and pry bracket off,then whack the rest of rivit out of frame.
smokewrench is the fastest but still need to drive rivits out of frame/pry brackets off.
are you swaping the 4x4 stuff to the 2x truck?
I have always fabed up stuff when converting over a 2x, but mainly for lift reasons.
if you want a cheap 4" lift for the rear the shackle flip is nice for the rear for not adding more blocks to the 3.5 blocks it has in stock form.
you would use a set of front spring hangers from the donor truck on the rear shackle to flip it.
this also lowers a truck like on my 88.
are you swaping out the frame part under the engine as well to remove the coil spring pockets makeing room for the front diff and drive shaft?
going higher could solve/save a lot of work but does not look nice IMO.