1997 Escort LX...major problems again

[Gone-Huntin]

Hi all,
First of all this is my first post so...howdy all.
Now down to the escort trouble. Its junk. I guess that says it all. I bought the car for my wife when it had 41,000 miles on it. thank God I bought a warranty to go with it because at 44,000 the auto tranny wwent out. took it to the dealer, rebuilt it, a week later same thing, rebuilt it again, replaced torque converter, whole 9 yards. A week later it went out again and this time I threatened to burn it in their show room if the tranny wasnt replaced. They put a new one in. done good to 111,000 miles, dropped a valve, blew a whole in the #1 piston. My warranty ran out at 100,000 miles, so I replaced the motor with one that had 34,000 miles. Done good until last month. !@#!@$ thing blew a head gasket and now Im about to. Started blowing white smoke, but didnt overheat. Wasnt loosing alot of antifreeze, oil was fine radiator was fine so Im guessing its leaking directly into the cylinder.
My question is ...it didnt overheat, was running fine, no problems. The engine has been in it for about 3 years and has approx. 85,000 miles on it. What in the world could have caused it to blow a gasket? it didnt overheat before hand. Didnt run low on oil or water.
Someone told me that the water pump going bad is the major culprit of hg's blowing but it wouldve overheated if that were the case. Whats the chance the head is cracked due to it overheating? It got into the red before I could get it off the interstate. Cant afford to put much more into it. not worth it.
Thanks for your input.

[AaronR]

Did you have your cooling system serviced every 30k? I've heard that old coolant can become corrosive and eat through the gasket.