New 156 driver

[colcol]

Welcome back New 156 driver,
2. might be that one of the 2 cats are contaminated, new Genuine are about $3500, but can get after market for about $800, the lambda sensors start to throw up error codes at about 100,000 lkms.
4. Swarf in a gearbox?, sounds serious, need to drain oil and put in fresh oil and drain it later on to see if clean, another reason not to have a selespeed.
5. I have had my 156 JTS for over 5 years, onto my 3rd thermostat, with different brands/suppliers, like how hard can it be to make a thermostat last longer than 10 minutes?.
6. Direct injection means that it uses a bit of oil, put 10-40 oil in and it will use more than if you use 10-60, don't stress out about it, just accept it and check the oil every week, Colin.

[jimay3677]

Hi col. I should have been a bit clearer. The gearbox had a small chunk of metal in it, I'd say a chunk of 1st gear as the selespeed loves dropping to 2nd 1/4 a second before I press downshift which has caused a shift into first at 30-40k a few times. I took in the instructions for removing swarf but it wasn't swarf that caused it.  I'd say you're right about the cat but I'm not too stressed at the moment since it's still running fine and economy is good.

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[jimay3677]

I definitely don't like the fact the sele takes over on downshifts or that it insists on switching to city when you use cruise control.

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[colcol]

Its good that you have made it clearer, a chunk of metal has fellen to the bottom of the gearbox, where it can't cause any harm, swarf is ground down metal caused by something rubbing somewhere, as for the chunk of metal, don't worry about it at this stage, when its a new clutch, with gearbox out, have the gearbox looked at, Colin.

[jimay3677]

The chunk had actually lodged itself at the end of the forth gear selector rod so I had no forth until it was removed.  I have some royal purple gear oil to go in when I find a reason to take that giant undertray off.

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[jimay3677]

Well, after a few months of only missing 1st occasionally I ended up dropping in to N when I tried for 5th, 1st wouldn't select quite frequently (tonight I had to try several times to get in to 1st)

The selespeed pump was kicking in almost every gear change and the pressure was dropping in just over two minutes.  So tonight I change the accumulator over for the one I had (that, thank the gods, I didn't sell)
So sorry to the user who asked to buy it THE SAME DAY I dropped into N and noticed the pump priming frequently.

Pressure is holding now for just shy of five minutes, the pump is operating every 2-3 gear change and no more missing 1st.

It took about one hour to change, 45 minutes of the was pulling off the engine tray to find a nut I dropped and to take the battery tray back out again after discovering I'd left a cable tie off.

Asap I will pull the pump and change the brushes just because I've heard you get no warning when it fails.

Still loving the car, she's a bit oil hungry but we're talking 100-200ml every 1-2000k, I've been using Penrite HPR10 which is a 10w50 Full synth I figure it's a compromise between 10w40 and 10w60.  I was looking for paddle shifters for ages and couldn't find any cheaper than around $120 each, then I saw a full steering wheel for $35 to grabbed it and have put the paddles back in, so much fun

[colcol]

When the 156 JTS first came out in 2002, Alfa Romeo recommended 10-40, as previously used on the twin spark, then with the higher than twin spark JTS oil consumption, they uped the oil to 10-60, so like you said the oil you have is 10-50 a bit of a compromise, but thats ok, just keep an eye on the oil consumption, but importantly, the oil suffers from dilution, due to the direct injection, so if you do a lot of idling and traffic, change it sooner rather than later and or give it a good high speed run to burn out all the contaminates, Colin.

[jimay3677]

I drive 40k to and from work at 100k five-six days a week so it gets a good run

[jimay3677]

Well. I still have the random not going in to first issue.  I'm just going to live with it for now until I can get the car to a decent independant.

I've got a 2nd hand pump on the way that I'll rebuild and swap that over just to see if it makes a difference but I'm not optimistic.  Next step is battery but it may be hard to convince the boss lady I need a new battery lol

[jimay3677]

Yup, rod is at 28.06 and have run self learn clutch calibration and eol which seems to have helped a little.

[jimay3677]

Yeah I did the clutch cal. It hasn't done it since so that may have been it, when it does it it's more like when you shift a normal manual into R and it doesn't go in because shifting from 1 > N > 1 fixes it everytime. Last weekend I switched the gearbox oil to royal purple and also changed to actuator fluid which was brown to penrite LDAS, it's half the prive of cs speed and it's a full synth hydraulic fluid penrite recommend for the actuator, it's also green.  I haven't seen any more oil covering the sump and gearbox so I'm not sure where that came from but it's been spotless since I cleaned it all off. I have a funny feeling it was transmission fluid from when the dealer took the gear box end off to fix my 4th gear issue as they clearly didn't remove the drain plug but surely they would clean it off.

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[jimay3677]

Still happy after 10 months no major issues other than accumulator.

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