>Good luck, and that is definitely a weird one! That area is not subject
>to any particular stress, so it is hard to guess why it cracked.

        Hmmmm . . . sounds like defective manufacture.  Defective metals,
defective casting, defective moulding, defective pouring process, or
something.  Wonder if someone could produce some expert opinion evidence to
back this up.  In a non-stress area of the block, seems to speak for itself
that something else was wrong with it that had little or nothing to do with
the operation of the engine or maintenance, etc.  A block should be in
service "for life" and guaranteed against cracking in a non-wear zone as
long as it has not been overheated or subjected to improper maintenance.
Am I right here?
        It would be very interesting to glean the factory production line records
of this particular run of engine blocks.  The same operator may have had a
bunch of rejects, or his blocks may have had the same problems.   Or it
could have been a bad batch of metals on that production run?  There has to
be a "right" way and a "wrong" way to make a block.  It it's not RIGHT,
then its wrong.  Something in between those two could cause problems down
the line.  Example:  block was cooled improperly after casting, or had an
air pocket in the molten metal or similar?  Or what else, experts?

        HK

Still questioning authority.
Still stirring up trouble from his comfortable easy chair