Hello,

well, replacing head gasket became a service duty on the Punoto's, it seems . Anyway, it was replaced 2 weeks ago on my Punto, in quite remote garage (due to place of breakdown). Now a new problem developed yesterday, a jingle-squeaky periodical sound coming from the engine. I immediately arranged a local mechanic to have a look on that. He took off the air filter assembly and the cover on the cam-shaft and almost immediately found out, that there is no oil coming to the cam-shaft and that the sound comes most likely from the cams itself. He took off the oil distributing tube (marked green on picture enclosed to this post) so to confirm that it's not blocked and that the problem is "bellow". Next it caught his attention, that the head gasket was replaced, so he sticked a wire to the channel and found out, that he can get only about 10cm down through the channel (see attached picture for schematic figure, the channel is figured as nr. 7 position), a distance approx. from the upper side of the head down to the head gasket level. The channel appears to be blocked by head gasket (see red circle in the picture included; my engine is 1,2l 8V, not 16V figured in the picture). He says, that either the gasket is somehow flipped over or it's faulty, i.e. has no hole for the channel!
I would like to know your opinion, because I have to "ship" my car now back to the original garage and if the local mechanic is wrong, I'll have to pay not only for the new repair, but also for the transport. And I wouldn't feel comfortable of false accusation either.
So what do you think? And how's that I made circa 500km in those 2 weeks without breakdown? (well, only cam-shaft was affected, but anyway!). Can somebody confirm that the wire should go through the block all the way down?
Thanks for any opinions and answers!

Regards,

gasket could have been fitted up side down

dave said:

gasket could have been fitted up side down

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Thanks Dave!
Really?! That's what the local mechanic told me, but I find it difficult to believe... The garage won't admit their fault easily, I've already spoken to them this morning and they told me they can't believe they fit it incorrectly. However, they will accept the car back for a fix of this repair. Thus I want to be sure, although it seems to be pretty straight forward issue...

common problem (fitting gasket upside down) .....do loads of them from customers who fit it wrong.

T14086 said:

common problem (fitting gasket upside down) .....do loads of them from customers who fit it wrong.

Click to expand...

Thanks, I'm starting to believe it. I KNOW it's true, it's just hard to accept that . It was a big garage and the car was taken there by breakdown service of my insurance company!
Thanks again for your comments!

Something to bear in mind though- the oil channel in the block is offset by about 8-10mm compared to the hole in the head (the hole in the head gasket is elongated to link the two channels).

Even if the gasket was fitted correctly, you probably couldn't probe all the way through into the block.

The oil hole is at the bottom in the centre-



However, no oil delivery to the cylinder head does indicate the gasket is fitted wrong anyway....

On the Fiat gaskets, look for "ALTO" marked on the gasket. Fit with this facing up and readable.