dtimmins1985 said:

Not always that simple peter... i spent £500 and a tad more buying parts for multijet stilo to find that my m92 body has abarth hubs!!! That's why it's the m92

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Exactly

As mentioned before, my 2007 model has 2004 parts. Going by the book gets you the wrong parts. Plus ePer is only focused on European versions, and right now it isn't working.

"OOPS! AN ERROR HAS OCCURED. Sorry me hearties, there be pirates in these waters and they've scuppered me vessel.

Best try again in a few minutes. In the meantime, flog ye olde cabin boy and have some more rum.

Error Code: 666"

Buy your own ePER.
And, as long as the car is not privatly, hand build, it's all there, no matter where, and when it was made...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/FIAT-EPER-...492135&hash=item4b179c3f4f:g:nugAAOSwsXFZGt0m

FIRE head gaskets are coated with a sealant. It starts to activate when exposed to air and finishes the job as the engine warms up for the first time. A new gasket should come sealed in a bag, and should not be opened until moments before fitting, then torqued down once, never re-torqued and not re-used. This is not unique to Fiat or the FIRE engine as many manufacturers use gaskets with this type of sealant.

Re-using the gasket carries a risk of having to do it all again.

portland_bill said:

FIRE head gaskets are coated with a sealant. It starts to activate when exposed to air and finishes the job as the engine warms up for the first time. A new gasket should come sealed in a bag, and should not be opened until moments before fitting, then torqued down once, never re-torqued and not re-used. This is not unique to Fiat or the FIRE engine as many manufacturers use gaskets with this type of sealant.

Re-using the gasket carries a risk of having to do it all again.

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I certainly would not reuse one of those. My gasket was not one of that type, when opening the engine it was the first time in my life I had seen a steel gasket, hence the question. 100% steel, two sheets of 0.25mm each, nothing else. No glue, no sealant. The gasket is mostly still shiny, no sticky residues.

From what I can gather, steel gaskets appear to be rare, so it's not just me. Of all the people that have kindly replied to my question, none seem to have had direct experience with a steel gasket in a Fiat.

Naturally it's not about the money, I can get a gasket for peanuts here, but they are all much thicker and would reduce compression ratio down to 8.7.

Since this is a daily driver and my wife goes back to work next week, I'll reuse the gasket and apply the Permatex spray suggested above. Then with time in my hands I'll try to source a steel gasket and bolts, it's only about a couple of hours to replace the head gasket anyway.

Thanks everyone!

Peter Pick-Up said:

Buy your own ePER.
And, as long as the car is not privatly, hand build, it's all there, no matter where, and when it was made...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/FIAT-EPER-...492135&hash=item4b179c3f4f:g:nugAAOSwsXFZGt0m

Click to expand...

I did use eper and yes got the correct parts in the end.

But places like shop4parts struggled when locating part numbers etc and actually had the wrong shocks and things listed for the 150hp model... lots of sites online had them listed wrong too, finding the proper cross-ref took a few days and evetually we got the right parts. Very frustrating.