I bought my AAR in 76 with a warranty short block. It still had the tag riveted to the block. It was a 71 steel crank regular block. When I got the car, it had a spun rod bearing with only 52,000 miles on the odometer. When I pulled the pan, it had one of the rivets that holds the steel pan on the intake, laying in the bottom. It also had all the aluminum pieces that came out with it. The other rivet was missing and a bolt was tapped into place. I speculated at the time that the first rivet and aluminum bits came out earlier in its life and killed the first and original block. Fast forward to current time. I just bought an AAR from a bud that I actually found for him back in 78. I knew the guy he bought the car from and I recently got to know the guy he bought it from in 76. That guy bought it in 73. Both guys claim that the motor in the car when it sold it to my bud in 78 was the one in it when they got it. It still has the TA heads and intake oem to the car but has a 72 340 now. It’s not a warranty block. I looked at the intake yesterday and it has both rivets replaced with tapped bolts. I need to look at my other two intakes to see if they have the rivets intact. One is from my Son’s AAR with low miles that I bought in 79 with a freshly rebuilt motor. It has the original numbers block but had a 318 steel crank( with no hole in the rods throws) turned to .010/.020. The other is just one I bought from an add in San Antonio years ago.

My question is this:
Has anyone else had those steel rivets come out of the aluminum intake or seen any warranty bulletins one this problem?

be careful of what you ask here , you most likely get opinions about everything else and never get a straight answer. however, I do like your theory about the rivets, never really thought about that happening ,but as a parts vendor for years I can personally tell you that 1/3 of the intakes I have bought and sold either had lose rivets or missing heat shields. I always thought that someone was curious to see what was underneath the heat shield and either pried partially or removed heat shield . IMO your research makes way more sense than the answers I received when asking a similar question.

I pulled the rivets off my T/A intake around 78/79 prior to installing it during a rebuild as they and the plate were loose, and tapped the manifold for bolts, as well as set the carbs up for studs... IMHO I think the original 340 manifolds had casting issues due to the alloy used, the aluminum was just way too soft and porous, I've refurbed a good number of six pack manifolds/carbs (sm/Bblk) over the last 3-4 decades, and factory T/A manifolds are always a mess in regards to the various fasteners and their threaded holes as well as water tubes/threaded ports and oil splash shields/rivets needing thread repair/inserts/modifications and in worse cases welding/rebuilding

I have not seen any loose rivets yet.

I have not heard of any recall factory paperwork on these engines either.

For the two T/As with warranty blocks I have seen so far that still had the dealership warranty paperwork with them, the blocks were replaced due to poor block castings.

I just looked at the intake from my sons car. It’s off and has one loose rivet and one bolt. The other spare intake has no pan and both rivets are missing. There is no evidence of threads for bolts, just the evidence of twist rivets. I’ve only had one more intake but I don’t remember what it had. I sold that car long ago.

This is what I saw as well. I had 2 sets of original's in the past and got rid of them in favor of newer stuff but I did not require Number Matching Parts

Old post but thought I would add my experience. My uncle, fresh out of the service, bought a brand new TA in 1970. He asked my Dad to go with him to negotiate the price
My Dad being a long time Chrysler man, even at that time, asked about warranty and they said it had none. My Dad argued that all Chryslers had a 5yr/50,000 mi warranty but the dealer said not on this car. My Dad told my uncle to go to another dealer but he was in love with this plumb crazy T/A and bought it anyway. Not that long after he bought the car, the rear window shattered - for no reason - it was weird - the whole thing spiderwebbed. The dealer did replace it even with no warranty. I remember going to pick the car up and it was in the Service department- they were fixing an intake leak. My Dad told me to wait outside and said it is the same as the Challenger out front but a 4-speed & purple. There was a lime green auto/ with console, white top, white interior out front of the dealership. I rode home in the back seat of the T/A looking at the cool bee decal on the rear side window. Years later, I ended up with the car, while it had only 52,000 miles on it , they were hard miles. The car had a spun rod bearing. I took the engine out and when I took the intake off the plate was loose. The holes were not tapped, there were tap in like rivets with a spiral on them holding the plate on. When I glass beaded the intake manifold, it had been previously welded up and ground down on the side.

In summer of 1970 I bought a new T/A had been a demo driven by owners son had like 2500 miles on it. Already had one clutch replacement.- Baltimore MD. I had to have the clutch replaced- had full factory warranty. . the problem was that the clutch pedal would stay down when making a high rpm shift. Later lost oil pressure at 75/80 dragstrip so I started driving it back to Baltimore- got really noisy so I shut it down and had towed to dealer. Problem was there was a set of slicks in the back seat- chrysler cancelled my warranty due to a NHRA sticker I had on the rear spoiler that read "Race Car in Tow". I told them to fix it or stick it up their "...." They repoed it and auctioned off for $1300- I had to finish making payments until my loan was paid off.. It was white/black stripes and read interior. they were sold with full regular warranty