At the end of last week, 7 weeks after I took the car in to the transmission shop,
they finally finished! The mechanic kept at his tired claim that it was caused by play in the crankshaft.
Today I took it to a shop called Harry's Automotive in Butler, PA, which was recommended by another member, and had the play measured. It's well within spec. To be precise, it's 0.020", and according to the mechanic, spec is between 0.014" to 0.045".
That basically means that the second failure really was due to the first rebuild being a bad job. I don't know if he did a better job this time, but last time he rebuilt the torque converter, and this time he replaced it. That may be a good indication, but here's a bad indication: This time he
painted the transmission case silver
I guess he figures I'll think it's brand new! (I saw it when it was up on the rack today getting the play measured.) He also replaced the ruined oil pump, bushings, fluid & fliter, and of course the flywheel. He wrote on the work order: "Motor has excessive endplay in crankshaft. This is the cause of vehicle breaking flywheels...Warranty:none."
In any case, I already bought a new SVX just a day or 2 before he finished! It's a FWD 94 Laguna that was well taken care of. (It's in very good shape, especially considering that it has spent its whole life in the northeast.) Now that I have my old car back and know there's no engine problem, that seems kind of excessive. I always wanted a laguna, but now that I have my claret back, I like it better than the laguna! Maybe that will change with time.