Thanks to the suggestion to adjust the steering box. That fixed the stiffness in the new front end rebuild. I guess that the steering box had to be that tight to compensate for the slop in the worn out parts that have been replaced with new. Good call, I was worried that it was bad ball joints. Whewwwww!!
I will post a pic soon of the new stance of my bug after all the work that I did. While it is not in the weeds as some like, it is just right to me and now sits with just a little nose down as I wanted. The ride is great, even with the adjusters. But, I do see that the ride would suffer if the ride stance was lower than it is. As things turned out, I am at the lowest setting of my adjusters. Due to the mistakes made during assembly and the corrective actions I took, the only way to make it lower with the adjusters now would be to take it all apart and do over. I am happy with my results and am satisfied to know I did it myself. It was fun and would do it again(someday).