I can one up you on the pull a plug and have a v7 trick, in high school, my buddy had an AMC Hornet with the 6 cyl in it, threw a rod and sent a chunk out of the block. In auto shop, we dropped the pan, disconnected the rod and shoved the piston all the way to the top of the cylinder just short of the valves and jb welded the chunk back in the hole in the block. He drove it for the last two months of school that way as an inline 5.
As for my Ranchero, I finally upgraded to a 302 when I was a senior in high school and built the 302 mildly over stock, thats when I started going through rear ends. As for my wagon that I am building right now, I want this thing to be reliable enough for me to drive daily and on long trips but short term, I will see what happens with the 260. Funny you mention the 2.9 Ranger idea, I just had a friend of mine tell me to do the same thing..