Guess maybe it's my experience that preculudes my caution. The experience of totalling my '65 Mustang with beautiful balanced and blueprinted '289 when I ran it into a telephone pole doing about 50 back in '74. Threw the engine (which at that time must have had no more than 20K on it) and trans into into a cheap '63 Falcon (now THAT was a sleeper!) and damn that thing ran nice- for awhile. Maybe it's all just pure coincidence, but I only got maybe 10K more miles on it before that thing started it's quick downward spiral. No problem (EASY) working on that though and I wouldn't give it a second thought now going with used on something like that. Over the years I've also had acquaintances who have picked up 'low mileage used' from junkyards who within a year or so encountered problems with things like rods, pistons, cams and even cranks cracking or breakingbreaking. Mind you, for each one of those guys there are probably a dozen or more that I know that have had no problem whatsoever. And the stuff back then (with respect to engines and quality control) certainly isn't as good of quality as the things produced today. I suspect I would have no problem doing as you did and going the used route- just don't want to chance it!
