A Jeeper fixes his own stuff.
A Jeep owner might not.
Pull the oil fill cap and look for signs of coolant. Look for a sludge like substance. If everything looks pretty clean in there and the oil is good, most likely you are fine. the cracked heads most likely resulted from overheating so keep an eye on your temp and coolant levels to make sure you are not consuming coolant.
I have a 2001 Sport with over 200k miles on it.
The 2000 and 2001 did have the low pinion Dana 30 which shouldn't be a problem until you put much bigger wheels on it.
Ok it seems like there is a correlation between poor maintenance and heads cracking. That isnt something that worries me. The E36's straight six has a cast iron block with an aluminum head. Mix that with a cooling system built with plastic parts is a recipe for blown gaskets and cracked heads. Preventative maintenance will keep good cars running for a long time and great cars running forever.
What about the "cancer" locations? Are there any locations where a little rust isn't a deal breaker? Any locations I should check out to see if a little problem will become major after a winter or two?
Just called sunfire offroad where my jeep is getting worked on...lockers, bearings and seals going in for the rear axles today. They are still trying to figure out what's going on up there, they are thinking it's the CV on the driveshaft that's messing up the front end. Not sure what my total expense is going to be yet, kinda nervous.
A lot of Cherokees are in great shape body wise............due to that rear seal leaking on the I6.
My 88 was great (even after I got it and changed the seal).
My 90 was from Pittsburgh, parked on the street, so rocker by rear wheel was pretty bad (side facing street).
Look what I get to have or install myself in the coming months.
Long story short, a guy won it at the NAXJA winterfest and gave it to me (he then won a hi lift and some other bumper stufF).
Here is the new wheels! 48k miles when I bought it, now rolled over 49k after the 660 mile trip home. 100% rust free. Everything is perfect.