[turbojimmy]

My mom's '85 Lincoln was the same way. It was a rebuilt total. During the repairs the engine seized. They freed it up somehow. A few months later a piston came apart and destroyed the motor. Evidently it had cracked in their attempts to free the motor up.

Motor #2 was a junkyard motor. It ran for about 6 months before it shot a rod through the block.

Motor #3 was another junkyard motor (low output 302s were plentiful back in the day). This one, however, succumbed to a design flaw in those engines - the plastic teeth on the timing chain sprocket.

Motor #4 was a guy selling 302s that he had aquired from Ford. They were discarded after they were replaced with engines that had redesigned timing chain sprockets under warranty. It's faster to replace the whole engine than to dig in and replace the sprocket, evidently. He upgraded the sprocket and turned them back out.

That engine ran until the car was so worn (inside and body) that we junked it.

Jim