Slant 6 head interchange: 1975 head on 1969 Block?

The short and correct answer is that the head you're looking at will fit and work fine on your '69.

Throw the Haynes book in the trash. It's worse than useless; it will mislead you with wrong information. Get the three books described in this thread as quickly as you can.

Aaaactually…Polkat's info is a little crossed up. The heads do not contain the lifters. All slant-6 heads bolt onto all slant-6 blocks. The '81-'87 heads used on blocks originally equipped with hydraulic lifters require their own special valve cover, but that's the only point of potential adaptation required. The '60-'66 heads have a less refined combustion chamber; the '67-up heads have a better chamber shape for more complete combustion. The '60-'74 heads have aluminum tubes around the gasket-seat spark plugs. '75-up heads do not have spark plug tubes and use taper-seat plugs for which fewer options are available. There is no "large tube" vs, "small tube"; it's with vs. without. Many '72-up heads have an extra bolt-and-flange port at the rear of the manifold mounting face. This is for air injection, an emission control system used on some vehicles starting in '72. The extra passages in the head for air injection make the head heavier by about 20 pounds, and if your car hasn't got air injection you need to block off the extra flange port.