Alfa 146 ignition problems

Our 146 1.8 TS has finally died after plenty of warning and several trips to the garage.

Previously, the car would fail in the wet with the engine speed going up/down randomly, loss of power and engine warning light coming on. Normally, a 10 minute wait would cure the problem.

Garage has checked the lambda sensor and nothing found... ECU has not recorded any faults in the memory.

I have checked the connection box immediately in front of the battery, and there is some corrosion on the terminals of the relays etc.

Today, it's totally died and no rain.. RAC says fuel, but no ignition.

Any help gratefully appreciated.

Regarding the fuse/relay corrosion in the fuse box in front of the battery, I'll point you towards another post first rather than just re-typing what I've previously already written...

http://forum.alfa145.com/index.php?s...ost&p=11353 6

If cleaning up the relays and fuses in that box doesn't resolve your problem then the next prime suspect is the crank sensor. Intermittent poor running problems with starting issues which then disappear are classic symptoms of a failing crank sensor. A faulty one will break down internally at different temperatures which is why the engine has problems at some temperatures but not others (i.e. it restarts and runs fine again if you leave it for a while).

Thanks for the info, just got in from working on the car.

One of the relays is faults, keeps chattering when constant voltage is applied to the coil. That was the left hand RED one as you look at the front of the car, swapped it for the middle one (rear electric windows?).

Right hand RED relay also had one of contact wires corroded through. Have bodged that, but need to crimp new spade onto wire. Can you get the old spade out of the relay base?

So, car is now running... But, it sounds decidedly rough and gets hot very quickly. Could either of these be electrical as well?

Thanks.

The left and middle RED relays are the 2 most important ones in thast box so those need to be working 100% otherwise you will have problems. The relay and fuse functionality along with their locations in that box are described in the following post...

http://forum.alfa145.com/index.php?s...ost&p=11346 1

The spades do come out of the holder with some persuasion. A very small screwdriver (i.e. watchmakers screwdriver) usually comes in handy to help prise them out of the plastic captive housing.

The rough running could still be down to the dodgy wiring in that box so I would get that sorted 100% first.

When you say the engine is getting hot quickly I'm not sure what you mean. The TS engine does come up to temperature quite quickly and it should remain at a fairly constant 90 degrees on the dashboard temperature gauge regardless of whether the car is stationary or moving in traffic.

Just to add, it's also worth opening up the relays and checking the state of the contacts because they can end up like this which doesn't really help matters...

http://forum.alfa145.com/uploads/mon...1171729807.jpg

If you do find any like that then clean off all the carbon / gunge from between the contacts and then use some electrical contact cleaner to do a proper cleanup job.

Think I've got it sorted.

First Red relay (Mail Engine) was chattering, the contacts were not staying closed despite a good voltage to the relay coil. This relay was not fixed to the relay box like the others, but was left hanging loose.

I've replaced it with a generic 12V SPDT relay I got from the motor factors and that works fine.

The Second Red relay (Fuel Pump) has been cleaned up and is now fine.

The Third Red relay (A/C compressor) one of the spade connectors on the contact side had corroded through. Still need to fix that.

Bottom line, the car is now running fine albeit without A/C.

We've owned the car from new, and nobody has been at the relay box that I know. The fact the first red relay was not secured is probably down to laziness in the factory??

Thanks for the help.