[weim55]

My opinion, just my opinion, but a very experienced opinion.........

With your engine, budget and lack of time this is what I would do: (and have done many times...)

Skip the the heads. Why?.... Doing the the Vegas math you have about a 4 in 5 chance of everything going well and a great upgrade. With the compression and power upgrade there's chance this will stress an already marginal piston ring seal and the engine will start using oil and ultimately lose compression. A big fail.

Skip the cam. The risk of putting in a new flat tappet cam these days is too high. Junk cam cores, lifters and bad oil = flat lobes. More of that 4 out of 5 math. Don't be tempted. Yes you can take the risk but if you lose a new cam to flat lobes the engine is full of metal and now junk.

To do the reseal: highly recommended to pull the engine to do this. Much easier on an engine stand especially if this is your first rodeo digging into a full reseal with a pan gasket and rear main..........

If you must do this with the engine in the truck: Pull the bolt to drain the oil into a pan and let it sit for a couple days for as much oil as possible to continue draining down and into the drain pan. Makes a big difference when you're working with pan off the engine keeping dripping oil out of your face and surfaces you need to keep clean and dry. On my '65 the oil pan will slide out without raising the engine, not sure about a '67-'72. The new 1 piece pan gaskets are wonderful doing this on your back, get one.

The rear main is critical to do correctly and sometimes a total ***** to get the block side seal out. Hit a good utube video for procedure.

While you have the timing cover off to replace the front main and timing cover gasket: Replace the timing chain and gears. The original cam gear is a junk nylon plastic face that cracks apart over time.

Pull the intake and use RTV to seal the ends instead of the junk rubber seals that come with the gasket set.

Summary: To pull it out and leave it stock is going save you ALOT of time and $$. For every upgrade you make you can triple the amount of time you have in other issues from changed components. (things that don't fit, need modification to function correctly, additional trips to the parts store, $$....) Your risk of other problems from skipping those those upgrades is GREATLY minimized.

Good luck with the job.......

Steve weim55 Colorado