Some updates:
'79 - Sam and I cut the swingarm and welded in another 4" worth of DOM tubing last night. It seemed to go fairly well. While we obviously don't have a jig (and I would want to build one if we did it on a regular basis), eyeballing, with a small level and tape measure seemed to do the trick. I still need to clean up the welds and re-splatter any areas that I may have missed, but the bulk of it is done.
With the parts I've been buying, we now have a bit of a roller:
So, plenty of work to do, but we have made progress. By the way, what are the extra tubes sticking out from the frame at the rear brake lever point (and on the other side)? They have a threaded bit sticking out, but I don't see what the heck it is for. Looks like just a little horseshoe welded to the bottom of the frame opposite the lower rear motor mounts.
I did stop by my local indy shop who often has used Harley stuff. No peanut tanks, so it looks like I'm back to ebay for that. There is plenty of missing hardware, but at least now I can take an individual bolt off the '81 and take it with me to a store to buy replacements.
'81 - Carbs are off and partially dismantled. They were missing a couple of screws (one on a float bowl, one on the diaphragm top. Both diaphragms look good, no apparent holes. Jets looks clear, float valves look to be moving easily, floats look like they have been leveled well. The real problem I saw was whatever some PO put on the carb where a real float bowl gasket should have gone. It looked like a mix of some plumbers tape and some type of caulking/gasket seal goop. It was NOT good, and bits of the gasket seal type stuff was floating around in the carb. Who does that?
So, I have two new gaskets coming, and I'll hit Home Depot for some additional hardware. I'll also pick up a cheap fuel filter.