what would cause a cracked intermediate plate?

[L18M]

Never really asked or wondered this as thought maybe due to old age the metal gave way to cause the crack.

Reason asking is my enigne was rebuilt and the cause of the pressureised system was due to there being a crack in the intermediate plate. I\'ve not got this so can not post pics of it up.

Blitzboy mentioned there has to be serious det for it to be able to crack the intermediate plate.
What issues can cause such a det?

cheers in advance

[David Nock (RIP)]

Overheating due to low coolant?.....Guessing here. These engines are very unforgiving of low coolant or low oil conditions. If I imagine the engine running with low coolant in the water galleries of the middle plate then easy to see it cracking.

[Prof]

As you\'rs is a T2 - and that\'s where the engine mounts are - it\'s far more likely to get failures in the rear iron.  Without seeing the damage, where it is and what it looks like - who knows?
 
Bad engine assembly ?  Faulty parts ?

[BlitzBoy]

severe retardation of the ignition (ignition fault normally) can cause bad det as well