What Michael said! and, I'm not gonna disagree with him! There have only been a few stories that seem to confirm the existence of the pin problem. But, there's no way to know for sure if any of these type of gasket failures are NOT due to it. Just a look at where the gaskets failed, and the location of the pin...

The fix is easy, so it's worth checking before you put it back together.



Well, yeah, cuz overheating is a sure way to crack them.

Why would they overheat though ?

Poor maintenance/condition of the cooling system. I'm sure this was a contributing factor in my failure. I'm guilty.

Head gasket failure causing loss of coolant, air bubbles trapped in the head causing localized overheating of the head.

I think head gasket failure is just a fact of life we have to live with as long as there are aluminum heads on iron blocks. It's gonna happen eventually, no matter how well you maintain the engine.



Personally (MHO) if I decided not to replace the head, I would have it completely rebuilt, and the cost of that would probably reach, if not exceed, the cost of the AMC.

There were 5 generations of head castings, and you can tell which you have by looking at the back of the head. It is rumored that the 1's and 2's weren't as good as the later ones, with the 5 being the one to use if you had a choice.

Check out the search feature, most if not all this can be found in past posts!

Good Luck!