I'll throw some other Ford horror stories in.. just for good measure.
Can't remember the year squarebody Merc Grand Marquis that I had as a storage lot auction car, it needed head gaskets. Figured hell it's a 5.0; it should be pretty tough. Take the heads to the machine shop and they give 'em a little shave to be sure they're flat, do the valve job, etc. Put it back together and realize oh ****, these rockers are nonadjustable, so to solve the pushrod length issue we have to shim the rockers. Order the shims and wait for them to arrive, then fight with that crap. Get the engine buttoned up, charge the A/C, throw it out front for sale. Runs great, drives great, car is pretty solid. Battery goes dead every few days, crap old battery, figure it's just done. Except for one day the car catches fire just sitting out there, and I'm there just in time to pull the hood release as the cable let go under the hood, try not to burn my hands as I pop the hood, put the fire out, it flares back up because it's electrical. Yank the **** out of the battery cable to get it loose and put the fire out again. Fire source? Appeared to be the pump for the self-leveling suspension. Why it would catch fire and burn the car practically to the ground without having blown a fuse, tripped a circuit breaker, or....? 100% original unhacked wiring harness on a grandpa car. Now scrap metal, though I did pull the engine/trans and sell them separately.
Not even gonna try to recall what a royal pain it was to do -what should be- simple things like radiator and water pump on my wife's 5.0 Explorer. Blew me away that on a well-cared-for vehicle, everything in the world was wrong with that POS. I was so happy the day that it left here and she started driving my '94 C2500LD (she loved it, too.)
Richard