I am a retired guy with limited funds, so that is a factor for me on a rebuild, but again these cars can be viewed as an investment in some ways, especially if your time health are available; it is not like you are throwing money into a Ford Pinto.
Anyways it is all connected at some point and if you have a knock well to be prudent you would need to do at least do the complete bottom end and while you are in there get a clutch and resurface the flywheel and if you do that, you would not want a bunch of unburned fuel dumping onto your new ring job, so rebuild the carbs-- oh you would not want oil running down the guides and plugging everything up also. ……
That said you can drop the pan and pull the head leave the crank in pull the pistons and the sleeves out put new ones in with news rings and go for less than 700.00 and that could last for who knows how long and the noise should be gone----Or just drive it and chase the demons out through the tail pipe until they stop with everything else; purity one less knocking smoking car on the road. But again it might last for a long time.