Me and the '96er ran into a guy the other day who had seen a lot of my same 4.0 engines. He had talked about showing me where the engine would first 'show a crack,' but unfortunately we never got around to getting the hood up. I'm guessing he was talking about the block but I'm not entirely sure. Have any of you seen enough of these engines to recognize a pattern in where a crack would start to show up? I'm at 173k mostly very easy miles so it probably wouldn't hurt to start keeping an eye out for something like this. Lord knows any more oil on the engine probably wouldn't get my attention.

The only "cracks" I have encountered with the 4.0l are in the exhaust manifold.