Any benefits to having a 61 235 over an earlier model?
Likely has the best factory version of the 235 camshaft.
Also would have been equipped with arguably the “best” rocker oiling system. Rocker shaft gets pressurized and rockers have offset grooves to limit oil from spurting everywhere. That said, lots of monkeying around and mixing up components was common during the life of these systems. Hard to say what you have now.
The only “downsides” with the late engine are the modifications it took to get it into the early truck. Would have been super common to hack up the radiator support and lower sheet metal to accommodate the longer water pump. It’s also likely that someone did some creative fabricobbling to the throttle linkage. My truck had both when I acquired it.
Those are the “back in the day” way to make those modifications. There are ways to avoid such hackery nowadays.
Post some pictures and we can advise on how yours was done.
