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The mkiv Supra Owners Club

Anyone have much experience with Alfa Romeo's on here?


Kirk

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This week I had an Alfa 156 2.0 Tspark come to me for an oil service, a little bit of a clicking noise fired up from cold and the engine warning light on (although the book says its the injector light), anyway plugged it into my diagnostic scanner and it came back with the cam position sensor cylinder 1 reference broken circuit. So I started off with removing the timing cover to see where it was located but whilst I was looking I found the balance shaft belt had let go and was stuck behind the exhaust cam pulley where the sensor was located.

 

Took a bit of a gamble with this one and figured that maybe that was causing the light to be on so I changed the cam belt/balance belt with all new tensioners etc. Timed the engine up to specs using all the correct locking tools, turned the engine over, car ran fine, no abnormal rattles or noises but the light was still on so I plugged it back in, cleared the code but it instantly came back on so I figured I better fit a new sensor which involved me de-tensioning the timing belt, slipping it off the cam pulleys and taking the pulleys off. The exhaust pulley is on a key way and fits where it fits but the intake cam has elongated holes giving about a 10 degree's of movement. The actual pulley bolts to something called the variator which from what ive been told alters the timing of the intake cam. Anyway fitted the new sensor and replaced the pulleys and re-timed the engine. Turned it over by hand at first and then fired it up this time resulting in a horrible loud knocking noise on the top end, making it sound like a diesel.

 

Now before you say it yes the engine is timed correctly, I checked that 3 times before even thinking of starting it so its not valves hitting pistons, the engine revs fine and doesn't hesitate at all which has baffled me completely. I had a quick read on the Alfa forums and according to some of there 'master techs' it was a tooth out which causes the noise so I immediately checked the timing it was fine and dead on so this wasn't the cause. Then I spoke to my old mentor who mentioned it could be the variator which has a tendency to just fail and make a god awful noise associated with a very loud diesel. The car originally had this clicking noise but it was always off a cold start and asoon as the engine warmed up it went away so now im stumped on this one. I don't want to go and replace this thing only to find it isn't that but currently everything is pointing towards this and the fact the engine only started making this noise since removing the pulley one can only assume its this.

 

Thoughts? :shrug:

Edited by Kirk (see edit history)
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