I have just bought a 2001 Fabia 1.4 Mpi

On the way home it completely died which we are hoping is a failed alternator and loss of power. The Power Steering was the first thing that failed

We have water contaminated in the Header tank which looks like a head gasket failure as I would have expected on a Rover K Series.

I can find no mention on this forum of HGF on these cars

I am about to order a gasket. Are the head bolts of the Stretch Type and do I need them when the engine is stripped down?

Any advice would be appreciated

Surprised you can't find any mention of this, it's been discussed in the fabia 1 section and probably technical guides section off the top of my head. The early cars HG was a weak point (then again 13 years for an HG isn't that bad), a revised part can be identified by a 'T' on the front right of the gasket as you look at the engine bay from the front of the car. The torque settings were also revised later on and since then cars seem to be fine. Most early cars that were serviced by a franchise dealer had a new HG fitted during the first few years.

Used to love doing these - We did so many that the apprentice and I stripped and replaced the head gasket - manifold gaskets, thermostat housing and coolant bottle including flushing the system in 45 minutes. 

 

If you have not fixed it yet send me a pm and I will point you in the right direction

Aye, I did mine as a semi-beginner having never done it in 2 hours.

 

I never replaced my bolts as... They were under-tightened in the first place! (this is supposedly a common cause of HG failure in the first place!)

 

Best recommendations - Buy a TEMAC gasket. It's the uprated one.

 

Once you've bought the gasket, get a haynes manual... Then get some cardboard. Draw the gasket on the cardboard and label the bolts appropriately with the numbers from the manual for tightening order and then as you take out the original bolts, put them in holes you make in the cardboard so you know which are which.

 

Last recommendation - Don't follow the standard tightening recommendations. 50 ft-lbs of torque. Trust me on this.

 

And then lastly... Flush out the crud from your car by using water and non-foaming washing machine cleaner. dilute it together, fill the car with it, top up with water, and run it up to temp. Turn it off, flush it through, do it again. flush it through, do it one more time. flush it through 3 times with water, then fill it with g12 coolant. 

 

Done.