For those who might be interested, I recently acquired a '73 Chevy Half Ton with a 454 in it. Almost completely original.

It hadn't been started in about 10 years and I got her started with little effort only to find out about a month or so later that she was about kerchunk herself when she had been parked. Finally pulled the motor last weekend and tore it apart to find some nasty demolition inside.

Here are some pictures of the ol' girl as I've been working on her. There'll be updates if anyone's interested in following.
Project Truck

So what's your plans? Restoration? hot rod?

If the block is junk grab a motor out of a 90s and rebuild it.

crate 454s are very pricey.

General plans are for minor restoration with customization as I see fit, but she'll probably live most of her life under primer with little cosmetic alteration. Most of the work will be handling and towing oriented. In the end she'll probably just be the work horse hauling stuff around, home projects, and the grunt work of moving the project car/parts around as needed when I can start working on that.

I'll do most of my learning on the truck so by the time I can get my car I'll have the experience under my belt. I already know the mechanics of things, it'll be all the body work and such that I need the practice.