79 head gasket trouble

[mlbaker87]

I have recently blown my head gasket on my 79 spider 2000 and in need of a guide to do the work my self because I'm not paying a shop 2,000 to fix it in my area does any one know where I could get a good manual for this because i have been reading and from what i have gathered i could do real damage with the wrong book,

[seabeelt]

Search the forum here, many have done this repair, including myself a couple of times. Plenty of help as you go along

[vandor]

The factory manual is available as a free PDF download. I think it's on the New Jersey fiat clubs page?

[RoyBatty]

I really think you will find this one of the easiest cars to do this job on. Depending on what type of emissions equipment is on the car.
The one thing I will warn you about, is to make sure you don't lose the little bushing dowel head locators. They should stay put in the block or the head. I have had them come out and fall into the
water jacket in the block.
It was lots of fun figuring that one out.

[So Cal Mark]

the most important thing you can do is determine what caused the failure and correct it, otherwise you'll be doing the job over and over

[So Cal Mark]

even if the dowels were missing, the bolts will still align the gasket. If it was recently done, I'd look closely at the head for warpage, electrolysis damage and corroded head bolts/threads