The Hotchkiss springs only lower the car compared to stock because of the front hangers. If you reinstall the stock front hanger you'll raise the back end of the car close to 1".
Drop spindles are a waste of money. They add bump steer, and if you want to lower the car for handling purposes instead of just looks you can add larger torsion bars and lower with the adjusters. Of course, if you do add larger torsion bars to improve handling you'll also discover that KYB's are absolutely terrible shocks. All of that is likely moot since a simple spring hanger swap will raise the back end of the car up so you probably won't need to lower the front just to improve the stance.
Your 215/70/14's are on the tall side of what usually fits easily, one you get up around 26" tall for a front tire things get close on the lower fender corners. But more than likely the issue is the amount of backspacing you have on those rims. If it's a front drum brake set up they shouldn't be that far out, so those rims must not have much backspacing at all.
Your car has the 5x4" bolt pattern then? Must have been a earlier '76 then, built in '75 before disks were mandated. If you have the 5x4" drums the '73+ disk swap will indeed widen the track width, which may be an issue for those wheels even if you keep the 5x4" pattern (like the kits you can now get from DoctorDiff or PirateJack that use 73+ disk brakes but with the 5x4" pattern).
