Greetings, whattodo and Welcome to The 'Bolt. You are very lucky to have been given such a wonderful truck, it will make a nice cruiser when you're done tinkering (I guess you can guess which way I voted).
Ok, you say you have some mechanical experience-this is good. Chances are with a little guidance from us here at Stovebolt you will be able to do a V-8 swap yourself. You're going to be switching out the engine, transmission and the original torque tube rear axle. You will also have to do some slight modifications to the truck's chassis, including removing the stock transmission bellhousing crossmember, and moving the stock steering box out about 1 1/2" to give you room for exhaust manifolds. You will also need to purchase a set of tubular engine and transmission mounting crossmembers, Chevy Duty and other suppliers list these in their online catalogs.
As for engine choice, the sky's the limit. You have many to choose from in the small block Chevrolet family, most would work okay, but some would be better than others, depending on how you want the truck to perform. If you just want the easiest route to getting the truck up and running so you can work on it, look for a cheap donor car like a Chevy Caprice, Pontiac Pariesienne, Chevy Malibu, etc. that's got a running V-8 and auto in it. Pull it out and use it straight from the car just to get the truck up and running-you can always rebuild it later.
One last tip would be to do an internet search for "Putting V-8 Juice in Your Stovebolt." This was a tech article by Pat Ganahl published in Rod & Custom sometime in the late '70's. It's a good basic article with pics of the V-8 swap and will let you see what you're getting into. Sorry about the long post. Best of luck with your project and please drop by with any further questions as we'll all be glad to help.
Regards,
Wannabe
