he is already looking really cool! it is your call on weather to chop up v1 or just do a all new beasty. i would swap in the head and legs personally i think. the problem i see there is his back legs look too big and front too small to just bash in the center of what's there. maybe you could sculpt some or dremel off some of the middle legs you pick and be ok though.
on the bendy things i was thinking you would just use those for a skeleton and sculpt over it to replicate the originals.
it sucks you are a world away as i actually have the perfect head in my ebay stuff right now. it was cut off a vinyl hollow dino from walmart that cost $1.

Ohhh... a skeleton. Ok ok ok... the wire should still be longer. I'll get longer wire and figure out how it'll work. I'll sleep on what I'll do about the head. Customs... sigh.