I certainly don't consider it hijacking of "my" thread. I'm open to all ideas, and there are a lot of good ones flowing around. Since I'm not nearly as tall as Gregg - (I'm 5 foot 9), I will have to strike the right balance between seat placement, shifter reach, steering reach, and being able to get out of the truck when needed.
If the seat is too far forward, the side of the seat and lateral head restraints take up a fair bit of the door opening space. Moving the seat back and using a collapsible steering column extension sounds like a good idea. That idea leads to moving the pedal cluster, the shifter position, and re-thinking the location of the switches and controls inside the vehicle.
I'm ordering the new seat today. I'll be cutting, bending, and tacking more tubes over the weekend so that I can be ready to play with the new seat when it gets here.
Let the ideas flow,
Steve.