Need some advice ...

[10BamBam01]

So a few years ago I was out shopping for trucks. The more I looked the more frustrated I got. A new 4x4 truck is just insanely expensive and I made up my mind I wasn't going to spend $40K - $50K on a new truck. I don't even want to spend $30K on a used truck that is going to depreciate down to $15K and bore me to tears at the same time. I decided to see if I could find a truck that I would want to keep for the rest of my life. I found such a beast in a local car lot. It's a 1972 K1500 with a factory 402, air cond, 4x4 and it's been gone through once already. It's not bad although it's starting to rust in a few spots.

I now have the truck paid off and I'm ready to start working on it to turn it into something special (at least to me). The 402 is a little tired and if I'm going to get 8 mpg at cruising speed then by god I'd like to get up there a little quicker.

So, I have a little bit of an idea of what I want to do. What I need help with is how to do it. I'm not a mechanic and I'm not going to even try to do any of this myself. I need a to-do list for someone else. My budget is $15K. What would you do?

1. Beef up the 402? If so, what specifically would you do to it? Replace it with something else? What?

2. Would you even try to put in an overdrive trans somehow? I have no clue how to even go about that.

3. Is there anything that can be done about the ride quality? Don't get me wrong ... It's fun to watch the wife when she's riding with me (she bounces pretty good) but that quickly dissipates when she starts *****ing about it.

4. Are disc brakes worth the cost / hassle?

5. What am I missing?

I know I'm going to have more in this thing than it's worth. I don't care about that because I don't intend to ever get rid of it. I love this thing and it makes me feel like I'm in high school again because it's pretty much what I drove every day back then and to me, that's priceless. Thanks, folks. I really appreciate your input.

[Xeen]

Welcome to the board.

With that kind of budget there is a lot you can do for the old girl.
I would personally yank out that old big block and transmission and if it's numbers matching put it in a crate and store it.
I would then go out and buy the entire drivetrain out of a TBSS and retrofit it.
As far as 4 wheel disk brakes, yes, yes and yes.
The ride quality... I'm afraid there isn't a whole lot you can do for a factory leaf spring suspension system, it's going to ride like a lumber wagon no matter what IMO.
You will come in well under the 15k mark if you are smart about who you let work on it and don't let them lie to you and give you an outrageous price tag to do the upgrades.

[franken]

I'd say don't bother with rear disks. It won't have much impact on braking performance. The fronts are disk already.
What ratio are the diffs? Auto or manual trans? If they're 4.10:1 and a manual trans, I'd think about an NV4500 from 95 or newer. 93-94 if you love the 6.xx:1 low in the SM465