If you do decide to clip the front with a later model front suspension, here is a piece of advice that I was given by some old timers that had clipped many cars.

Take something like 1" square tubing and build a triangulated jig that bolts to the firewall and duplicates all the radiator and front sheet metal mounting points. Do this before you cut the original frame. Then, after the clip is on, all you have to do is bolt the jig in place and build permanent mounting points for the front sheet metal. Makes the job 10X easier.