Woke up early this morning and took it to a shop a lot of my undies recommended that specializes in the cooling system. Shop was able to use a different brand radiator cap, flush the system, and replace some hoses. I now have full heat and no leaks so far, so I'm happy. Thanks for everyone's input.

 

What makes you think that? Remember that GM and Toyota didn't recall cars they knew were actually killing people until they were forced to. Chrysler was no different. Lately all the auto manufacturers have been recalling their cars for all kind of minor problems, but that wasn't the attitude before the US DOJ crawled up GM's behind. Their approach used to be not to recall unless they absolutely had to, to avoid the hit to their reputation.

These things generally don't fail until after 140K to 160K miles, well out of warranty. Note that they were installed in the vehicles for a few years, just long enough for a certain percentage of high-mileage customers to bring them in with cracked heads. Then Chrysler quietly switched to a different foundry without making a big deal of it. Why would they recall them when most of their original owners wouldn't see the problem before selling it to someone else who would just assume that an earlier owner had overheated it? And for those (like me) who kept theirs from new, it would happen five, six, ten years down the road, when the truck isn't worth that much any more and the auto manufacturers think we should have already bought a new vehicle anyway.

I drove mine for years in all sorts of weather and never overheated it. Mine cracked anyway. Because that's what they do.

 

Your underwear talks to you?

Glad to know it worked out, even if you are hallucinating.

 

Haha! Auto correct. Buddies*

 

I know nothing about GM or Toyota but your saying all the hatred towards the 0331 head is because they only last 80k to 100k past there warranty? This changes things a lot of thing for me.

 

If you read around here, you'll see people with older XJs talking about how bulletproof the 4.0 is, and how some of them are getting 300K miles out of them. I bought mine in part because a guy I knew got 340K out of his before it caught fire and burned to the ground. To reduce that to 150K miles instead because the foundry that made the original 0331 heads was incompetent is a pretty big deal. People expect these things to last well past the warranty, and when they don't, I think the irritation is justified.