leongsoon

Here's an old post of Smaky's I found elsewhere while trying to understand my car's tantrums better, been on my iPhone since; too handy! http://www.alfaowner.com/Forum/alfa-145-and-146/119100-obd-ii-codes.html

Got Sportlines with the stock B4 on my TS. The ride is firm with almost no body roll, and doesn't crash too bad on uneven roads. The roads where I am are horrible but the combination seems to work great so far. I was told it's a matter of time before the stock absorbers will be shot when lowered too much though, but I think on the firm rate if stock is 3 out of 10, it should be a nice 6 out of 10 ^^

Pedal power all the way! Those are really fun if the kids have a hard, smooth floor to slide the car on! Too bad they don't sell pedal cars for adults!

If it's just 215/50 R16 on stock wheels and Pro Kits you should be pretty fine, it's a pretty popular combination here and I haven't read of any complaints. I'm running 235/40 R18 on Sportlines and it only rubs the fender liners a teeny bit on full lock. I've no idea about my wheel offset but they're flush with the fenders now and the tyres are stretched a bit. You can calculate the acceptable tyre size difference here: http://www.alloywheels.com/Tyre_Calculator

That's what freaked me out; I was expecting it the fan to cut in anytime around the 90 mark but it didn't. Maybe I freaked out and switched the air con on too early hehe! Not too much of a problem though since it's hot all year round here and we rarely switch the aircon off.

Really? It's normally operating at 70+ and sometimes 80 on a really hot afternoon. It rained last evening so the needle was hovering below the 70 mark. The only 2 times I've seen it at 90 or higher was when the radiator fan isn't running with the air conditioning turned off. That really freaked me out but it was all good again soon after I switched the AC on. Haven't quite figured out why the ac needs to be on to make the fan run, tried swapping the red relays in front of the battery around but doesn't seem to be any difference I wanted to change the black 50A relay, but that one has to be ordered.

Whoah! What does it cost for all 8 plugs then? That's really surprising as I've been sourcing a lot of my parts from UK because they're considerably cheaper. Anyway, I've installed the new plugs in the car last night and went on an hour-long drive; slow, mostly fast, just letting the car idle doing nothing and it has been great! I think the engine is smoother now than it has ever been and I can't be sure but it probably sounds nicer too! I haven't been able to get the temperature up to even 80c to see if the rough idling will return, so I'll be holding my breath a bit until then!

Cars are a lot more expensive here in Malaysia, so they would have to go through a lot more substantial damage to be written off! Would be a shame to see this car cubed.

Haha thanks Smaky! It's a shame really I'm not nearer; my car wouldn't have had half as much downtime as it has accumulated now hehe! Turns out like every other part for this car, it's NOT available here and I've had to order a set of PMR7A plugs. RM180 or 37GBP for the lot of em, the figure is a bit astronomical but I wish I could say I was shocked hehe. Anyway I'll be getting them tomorrow and hopefully that will sort the idling out. xyy81t I got off very easy compared to you; I would have broken down and cried if I that happened to my engine Good job sorting the engine out!

Sorry, I just assumed away that since it's the earliest type of 156 it's gotta be CF1 Here's how the engine looks like: I guess these are the coils; can't say how horrified I am to be greeted by this sight: The five left most spark plug shafts are filled with water, some plugs are totally submerged. It quite a while to soak up all the water with newspaper and cotton. These are how the spark plugs look like upon removal, I guess they don't look too bad. I measured the gap for the spark plugs and they are consistent. Cleaned the coils and applied plenty of contact cleaner. Unfortunately, as I was retightening the very last spark plug, the rightmost small one, it snapped clear and left it's threads screwed within the shaft. My dad managed to extract the snapped part without much ordeal. I cranked the engine with all plugs off and nothing came out, so that's a relief. Gonna get some new plugs tomorrow.

Thanks K9D, I thought so too, but since it's erratic now I figured something else still might be amiss. Smaky! I checked the air duct first and it should be fine. I last checked the air filter a few weeks back and it's very clean. 1. Poor engine earth or bad plugs, coil pack, leads. How should I check these? 2. My engine's from a 1999 156 2.0 TS. I think it's a CF1. How do I check the ICV as well as the coolant temp sensor? In the mean time I'll try to have a look at the plugs. The MAF was the first thing I wanted to check but I don't have the proper tools to remove it.

Thanks Munky! I removed the engine cover and found that a small hose branching from the main intake hose after the MAF has came loose. When I used my finger to cover the hole the shuddering engine smoothed out again, so I just reclipped that hose. Sure enough the car behaved well and the power is all back. After driving for about 10 more minutes, the idling started to lower again and the shuddering restarts. This time though the power doesn't drop; it just seems to have a huge lag. Once I get to 2000rpm and above the car just seems to surge, anything below that and the car feels like it will stall any moment. I'm not too sure but it also seems that every time the temperature rises to about 80 celcius, the shuddering starts. Any ideas?

Car has been behaving itself for the best part of 2 weeks. Yesterday, I parked the car after a nearly hour long drive. On starting it up again about 15 minutes later, the car idles at abouy 800 - 900 rpm, normally it idles at roughly 980 -1020 rpm. When I restarted it this morning, the idling was nice again but I performed an ECU reset anyway. All through the reset it was idling nicely with no problems at all. After the reset, I took the car out, the throttle response and power was great, I can definitely feel an improvement and was rather happy. However, a few minutes later the low idling came back and the car shudders again. Power has decreased, revs go up slower and the car sounds like it's missing a cylinder. I hooked up FES and no errors came up, there weren't even any warning lights on the dashboard. Does anybody know what might be causing this? Many thanks for your help

Alright, turns out that the white plunger will snap inside and become short, fitted and tested no problem! Phew, today's the first time I drove the 156 out in almost a month, it feels so good! OK, anyway, I drove it for about 30kms and it behaved properly. Some brake warning did pop up on infocenter halfway but it was too brief; was gone before I managed to read it, I do think I glanced EBD and ABS again. Tested the car for a further 5 minutes and nothing else cropped up so I parked it and hooked FES up to get: P1752 Pump Relay C1802 Battery Voltage Out Of Range I'm just relieved that the ABS pump is behaving normally now. Gonna let the car rest more until I sort the remaining problems, just to avoid frying the ECU relays again. Is C1802 caused by P1752? May I know which relay is P1752 referring to so that I can put a new one in and hopefully fix the problem? Anything else I should check? Can't thank you enough Smaky!

Finally got my new brake switch today. The one with the white plunger is new. Is the black one broken? The black one is originally from my car but I've never seen another one like it on ebay or anywhere else; I just see the white ones everywhere. I just noticed the difference in plunger length now. If the black one is stuck it definitely doesn't feel like it; parameters show fine and the travel is about same as the white one. I'll just try fitting the white one now.

That's what I did to mine roughly 20 hours before the ABS problem cropped up! There's a nice subtle growl!

As far as I know the rear camber for any 156 isn't adjustable unless you modify it a considerable amount. Mine's wearing on the inside too because I lowered it with Eibach Sportlines and the camber is noticably negative. If your tyres are wearing inside even if the GTA is at stock ride height, it might be worn bushes. Just a wild guess though, better wait for Smaky

Well there are many other Alfa Romeos to choose from. On the other hand I do think having at least 2 156s is nice; kinda miss driving mine because it's still broken.

I didn't change it because it looks alright and seems to function with no fault, even the parameters are ok in FES, but I'll take your word and get a replacement later! Sure hope the workshop wouldn't want any of my fingers in exchange for the switch...

Upon hooking up FES to BOSCH 5.7 VDC for the first time I got and cleared the following: P0000 Not Present C1802 Battery Voltage Out Of Range C1266 Pump Motor C1460 Brake Fluid Pressure Sensor Faulty. C1460 might be there because I left the reservoir cap open during the test. After clearing the codes the car can start and no error lights appear. The ABS/EBD error combo on Infocentre does come back whenever I try connecting to BOSCH 5.7 with FES, but there won't be any new error codes. FES was having a High Latency problem with my cable, and the ABS/VDC lights disappear whenever I disconnect from FES and the brake fluid was very low so I didn't think much of it. With the ABS/EDC error on the Selespeed hydraulic pressure will also drastically drop to 0 all of a sudden at times, but I don't know if that's related. Today, after bleeding the brakes with the engine on, it seems the ABS ECU relays have stuck again and it's running non-stop once more. Brake bleeding did take very long; not sure if I was doing anything wrong but I had to bleed both front wheels at least 30 times each while the brakes were pumped repeatedly for about 20 minutes before the brakes were normal, haven't bled the rear brakes yet. Could it be possible that would have overloaded the ECU? On hooking up FES I got "P1752 Brake Pedal Switch" and "P1760 Pump Relay" again as well as "C1266 Pump Motor". I can just redo the whole ECU relay thingy again, but am worried the relays will be fried again when I bleed the brakes. Btw, is P1760 the relay for the Selespeed or ABS pump? It has reappeared quite a few times and has finally started to get me worried. I read that static electricity can damage the relays, so I reckon a check for potential gremlins that can damage the relays should be done, but I'm not very sure what relays or contact points I should look for. Sorry for boring you with all these Smaky.

I can relate to that; mine's parked for nearly 3 months out of the 7 months I've owned it. As a matter of fact it's been parked since last Sunday because I haven't managed to completely fix it up yet

The ABS ECU is back in with new relay parts! Doesn't run all the time anymore. Hooked up FES and got: P0720 Transmission Gear Sys(12) U1706 Engine > ABS data line P0500 Vehicle Speed Signal P1760 Brake Switch P1752 Pump Relay Cleared them off and they never appeared again. I think the first 3 errors appeared because I didn't snap the ECU connector on properly the first time. With the key at MAR I can now engage all gears properly and the Selespeed warning lights have all disappeared, so that's some relief. I assume I'll still need to clear codes in the ABS module? My brake pedal goes all the way to the floor now though. Do I need to bleed the ABS pump, or will just removing the wheels to bleed the front calipers do the trick?

Are the relays on the 5.3 accessible without removing the brick? My 156 is a 2002 model with new interior, so I guess it's the Bosch 5.7 since that's what FES lists under ABS for "156 '02 Selespeed". To be honest I'm not quite sure what it is; the two aluminium heatsinks/relays are visible just beside the 12 coils once the ECU is removed. The label of it says 46745936 0265225031. I've bought a 25A rectifier and uprated 75A N06 MOSFETs, can't trust my own soldering skills or lack thereof, so gonna have an electrician replace them for me later. I sure hope this is the culprit. Btw, do I have to clear any error codes or run tests within the ABS module after refitting the pump? It was too tight in there to extract the ECU so I had to pull the whole pump out, the connector and solenoids have all been wrapped properly though! If it's necessary, how do I bleed the pump upon refitting? Sorry for the long post and thanks once again

It's the one attached to the firewall between the battery, correct? It's that pump which is making running noises and vibrating subtly. So far I've been disconnecting the Bosch connector with the pull up latch beside it to stop it. I tried whacking it with a stiff sandal but no joy, still runs. Wouldn't dare use any more force in case I break some hoses here and there. Pretty positive it's not the Selespeed pump; had enough problem with Selespeed to know the sound well by now I did remove the bumper on Saturday to remove the resonator box and tightened a bolt on the hose coming out of the pump. Could I have messed something there? I do think it's a stuck relay too. I read one of your replies on AO stating there are 2 relays under a cover near the ABS pump but haven't been able to locate those; maybe I can check em if you'd point me to where there are. If it's really just a relay, can I just replace it instead of getting a new ABS unit altogether?

OK, so I got the brake switch out; it's not stuck at all, works smoothly, but I treated the connections to some contact cleaner just as well. My brake lights are working as they should be; no flickering when depressed, and brake lights light up when pedal pressed. A scan gives me the same old; P1760 PUMP RELAY and P1752 BRAKE PEDAL SWITCH. BRAKE PEDAL POSITION is alright; shows pressed when I step on it and off when I let go. PUMP RELAY CONTROL is off with key at MAR and engine on. Is this normal? VOLTAGE is 13.5 to 13.8 After clearing the error codes, I couldn't get them anymore in subsequent scans with engine on or key at MAR. I used contact cleaner on the ABS pump Bosch connector too, but it is still running non stop. Is there anything else I left out and should go over?