64 C30 Stakebed Question

[Lndeatr]

Hi All, I'm new here. I would like some advice from true Chevy truck folks. Yes I am mostly a Ford guy but I have owned my share of Chevy trucks ('59 El Camino, '65 C10 Fleetside, ‘66 C10 flatbed (not original), ’66 C10 Stepside, and a ’76 C20). These were all work trucks except the Elky. It was my Dad’s and was going to be a project with my son but he had no interest. I ended up selling it to a guy that had been looking for 17 years for an original complete California car. It was his very first car he ever bought new. He is in Indiana and couldn’t find anything that wasn’t Swiss cheese.

Anyway, a few years back I rebuilt an old Ford tractor and was given a 1964 C30 Stakebed as payment. It’s all complete, runs good and only has just under 85,000 original miles. My intention was to flip it but my daughter, now 14, fell in love with it and wanted it when she started driving. Well it went into the projects line and I have done a few things here and there. Brakes, carb rebuild, exhaust manifold, and cleaned it up. All I have left is to replace the bed wood. I have an ’87 350 TPI and trans from an IROC z28 that I was planning on dropping in. It currently has the 292 six.

I am a service tech and work on tractors which takes me all over to farms and ranches. Seen some really good barn finds and ended up with a ’58 F100 that had been sitting in the equipment graveyard since 1969. Well my daughter fell in love with it and now I am at a crossroads with the C30. Gonna pull it off the project line and work on it. I hate doing anything that would hurt the collectability of the truck but I am considering the motor swap, especially if I keep it as a driver. I would imagine its gonna be like my other past projects. Build it, drive it for a couple years, see another project that I want and then sell the C30 to help fund the new project.

So my question is should I keep the 292 in it? Will I be happy with that motor? Am I hurting the value of the truck if I do the engine swap?

I’m gonna move it up to the shop and clean it up tomorrow. I’ll post some pictures.

Thanks.