One thing that gets overlooked is repairing engines that have had a severe overheat. This can happen on any engine but is worse on one with aluminum heads.

As the engine warms up, the head expands and the force on the head bolts increases. The hotter the engine, the greater the increase. Since aluminum expands more than iron, Aluminum head engines have a much larger increase.

On an overheat the force gets so high the the gasket takes a permanent set and or the head bolts stretch. The head bolt washers can also take a set into the head.

The worse case is the block also cracks through the deck. If it happens, it will be on the exhaust side of the engine. Two factors, one the higher forces and secondly the block is losing strength as it gets hot.

Once you have a crack in the block the fastener would still hold, but the forces on the gasket will not be even. Those motors will continue to lose gaskets, no t matter what you do until the block gets changes.

This is not a 2.6 only problem, it can happen to any engine.

The other problem is some engines get put together with out of true deck surfaces.

All head gaskets have a life span. They will only last so many heat cycles before they fail. The greater the operating temperature range and the greater the expansion difference between the head and the block the more the gasket gets stressed. As the head expands and contracts the gasket lest the head slide along the deck surface.

This will eventually fail the gasket. how long should the gasket last. Reasonable is it should make it to 150,000 miles. Overheating will make sure you dont make it. Also some casting will have residual stresses in them that relax over time. This causes the head to warp over time. The uneven clamping pressure will get fail the gasket. Those are the motors that lose a gasket at 60,000 even when the motor was never overheated.

It does happen, but its not all that common. In general, as others have pointed out, it not that hard to have put together a 2.6 that stays together.

In some ways they did get a bad rep based on problems, but the problems are not as bad as they have been made out to be.

Kevin