A funny thing happened this week....

[Diamond Hell]

Is it a 3.0 with sport box/manual or the smaller v?

3.0 manual

*snigger*

Look at the cobweb on the left - wonder when these were last done!



Drive tonight confirmed it is definitely A Thing.

[leigh_harty]

I had a 156 2.0 at 20years old 

Cue the folks that the electrics are sh!te even though the majority of it are from the trusty Germans 

[Diamond Hell]

New plugs have not cured the misfire - moving to playing (as DannyP describes it) 'musical coilpacks'.

Now I need to swap the back ones to the front bank, as it drops to four when one of the fronts is disconnected.

Will also be disconnecting the lambda to see what happens then - misfire kicks in strongly when it comes out of the cold-start cycle.

[JC]

 

[Diamond Hell]

It's aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall good. 

[JC]

  o really ......................................

[Diamond Hell]

Yup - plenty of routes to chase out the fault at the moment.

If it still won't run right next week, I'll be glaring at it a bit more.

[Diamond Hell]

ECU reset completed tonight - now here's a simple procedure:

1. Disconnect the negative lead from the battery for a minimum of 45 minutes. Some people recommend overnight but that is not really necessary
2. Reconnect the battery negative lead
3. Put key in ignition, turn to ignition on and leave for 90 secs
4. Turn off , but do not remove the key and leave for 90 secs
5. Start the engine but do not touch the throttle and let the car idle for 15 mins otherwise the car will not rev freely afterwards
6. Turn the car off and leave for 10 mins
7. Start the car and take her for a blast

This was painfully boring except for the last bit.

It seems to be significantly perked up now, although there's still a cough at around 5K RPM which means the coilpacks will be being swapped front to back to further investigate.

[Diamond Hell]

Being particularly brave this week - taken it to Beaconsfield:



Not bad for a thirsty old thing.

[Diamond Hell]

And then I took it to Auto Lusso, who despite being one of the UK's premier Alfa specialists, couldn't find a misfire (because there were no fault codes) but did offer to do the cambelt on it 'because it's got tippex on the sprockets, so it will have been done wrong' at a cost of only £845.

They did usefully point out that the rear ARB bushes were shagged and need replacing..... only available from Alfa, with the anti-roll bar for £192.  I've since found them for a lot less.

Apparently, overall it's in pretty good nick.