Selespeed query - yes, I have researched this to the max!

My 2002 156 sele is smashing. I love the gear change, acceleration and looks. I'm not so enamoured with the ride, but that's to sort later.
Following advice from this forum, I've had the belts, tensioners, variator & thermostat changed. add an oil/air filter & oil change (all in around £700 from Southern Alfa, job well done, smashing chap) and she's purring along. Even starts first time after a fortnight away.

Now to the query... why does the selespeed do the oil 'puke' thing on my drive? I don't overfill it & check it virtually everyday and there doesn't seem to be any reason for it on any forum post I've read. I've fitted a catchpot, again as advised here, so that'll save the drive, but I'd like the car to stop doing it! Does anyone have a technical drawing of the pump & actuator that I could study? I've looked at the cd's I bought from ebay & have studied the 'selespeed bible' stickied on the front of the forum to no avail.

Finally, my selespeed display flashes in third & fifth gear. The gears change fine, on the drive and at speed and occasionally 3rd will go for 5 minutes without flashing. my own theory is that a calibration should cure this, the car was rumoured (no receipts) to have an actuator about a year ago and I would expect that this was the last time it was done. I've just received the data cable & am going to buy alfa diag tomorrow, so I'll post, should I cure it of course.

Your thoughts are most welcome.

Thanks in advance...

Originally Posted by jackois

Finally, my selespeed display flashes in third & fifth gear. The gears change fine, on the drive and at speed and occasionally 3rd will go for 5 minutes without flashing. my own theory is that a calibration should cure this, the car was rumoured (no receipts) to have an actuator about a year ago and I would expect that this was the last time it was done. I've just received the data cable & am going to buy alfa diag tomorrow, so I'll post, should I cure it of course.

Your thoughts are most welcome.

Thanks in advance...

My thoughts are the same as yours on that, a recal could be the way to go, and possibly check the arm length (28 - 28.5mm but you need diag for it), the overflow is normally down to people toping up the pump when cold, as it heats, it expands and overflows, or you have a gearbox, coolant, engine oil or Fuel leak that you haven't found.

The flashing could well be a calibration issue or possibly a speed sensor (not mega £££).

Re the spurting Selespeed fluid.
My theory is that as the accumulator relieves the pressure back to the fluid tank it swirls up to the rubber flap on the tank cap and down the breather tube.

A catch tank is a good idea for a few reasons.
1) it was never a great plan to be dumping excess oil in front of the tyre anyway...!
2) if your system ever starts loosing fluid, you will want to know if it is just going out of the breather or into the gearbox.

try this !

Very good idea that yourself and David C have RB.: Is that globules of Dexron III in the pipe? Looks golden rather than the red stuff ours has?:

its Tutella CS and its golden (so is the price lol)

OK - update time.

I've purchased alfa-diag, sorted the drivers for the cable and connected the laptop to the socket (very F1!). The only ecu I could access in the time I had available was the selespeed one, CFC208F, as the m3.1 ecu kept timing out.

There were 2 faults showing P0725 - Engine Speed Input Circuit Malfunction and Selection range sensor which I neglected to note the number for. Both reset fine. I then set the computer to run the calibration routine for the gearbox which was quite impressive, alot of clonking & clunking from under the car. I've had a quick run since and depressingly 3rd & 5th still flash. The only other thing of note was the battery voltage (I stress this was only on the selespeed ecu & I'll double check using a multi-meter) of 11.687 volts. I have a few miles to do over the week end, so I shall investigate further on Monday or Tuesday.

Finally, although the catchnpot caught a few millilitres of oil it took more than that to top the pump reservoir this morning. I'm still confident that there is external leakage rather than internal. (The state of my drive and the fact that the gearbox level was checked by Southern Alfa when they had it and the level was fine!) The stains on the drive suggest that any leakage is being caught on the undertray and then dripping off later...

If anyone could point me towards the location of the speed sensor to save me having to study through the cds I've got, I'd be grateful for any further suggestions & would like to thank those who've responded so far.

A further update will follow when I've investigated further. Cheers.

Voltage seems a little weak, should be at least 13 + volts with running engine... I have installed a small digital voltage gauge to be sure of good voltage (Selespeed needs good voltage !)


p.s. calibrating selespeed is impressive isn't !!! did you get a Test succeeded No faults message like Examiner does ?

The alfa diag gives a progress bar to show it's working away at the calibration and when done just comes up with a Process Complete massage.

I'm leaning towards a faulty sensor or connector with the flashing digit nonsense. I covered 150 miles yesterday with 3rd & 5th occasionally staying solid below 2500 revs, before beginning to flash once above it. Strangely, I got stuck in a jam for half an hour on the M4 when they shut 2 lanes off to recover a fallen over lorry. The 156 sat happily in the traffic with no temperature nonsense and ticking over quite happily. After I cleared it and pushed on back up to 5th, the number didn't flash for the next 50 miles. When I went out again later 5 was flashing again...

If it sunny next week, I'll hopefully get to the bottom of this...

Pull those connectors, check them for corrosion, and so on, and as RB says, good battery power.:

I think if you replace the black sensor at the back of the unit, that will sort out your flashing problems. Mine used to do it before I replaced it. That one is the gear selection sensor.

Originally Posted by Smaky

My thoughts are the same as yours on that, a recal could be the way to go, and possibly check the arm length (28 - 28.5mm but you need diag for it), the overflow is normally down to people toping up the pump when cold, as it heats, it expands and overflows, or you have a gearbox, coolant, engine oil or Fuel leak that you haven't found.

i thought that it had to be done from cold, am sure it says that in the manual.

Originally Posted by zulu ferret

Very good idea that yourself and David C have RB.: Is that globules of Dexron III in the pipe? Looks golden rather than the red stuff ours has?:

can you use Dexton III? Thought it had to be the golden CS fluid??

Originally Posted by rarebear

its Tutella CS and its golden (so is the price lol)

Tell me about it! - good catch pot by the way!

Check battery, see my simple voltage gauge..
first pic is with contact on, engine off. second engine running.

Nice little bit of kit that in car voltmeter is RB, very useful, I like it.: Dexron III is the standard I guess, clever Americans with their very early knowledge of fluids/lubricants for auto boxes and power assistance? Guess DavidC, will correct any inaccuracy with this 'assumed' statement I have made? Red, Golden/ Yellow, the maintained standard of specification?

I started to use Redline D4 ATF (which is red) several years ago when getting hold of Selenia CS Speed wasn't so easy.

Even though suppliers of Selenia CS Speed have improved, I've kept with the Redline D4 ATF.


Re checking the level when hot/cold, I usually check cold too.
But the fluid doesn't actually get that hot, certainly not hot enough to expand so much that it overflows the top of the reservoir.

no I didnt think it got that hot either! Its good having you hear David -like an email link to god!

so could it be that its over pressurising and that's what forces it out?

Quick update time! Selespeed fluid leakage is definitely external. I've had the car up on the ramps between showers and removed the undertray. Towards the passenger side rear is the evidence of leakage and where it's run off the back of the tray and run along the chassis on that side of the car.... doubt it'll rust on that side... It seems to be coming from the actuator area, which was rumoured (salesman) to have been replaced by the previous owner, so it may just require a hose/pipe union sorting (fingers crossed), and dripping down onto the driveshaft joint at the gearbox end. This is the lovely golden sele cs fluid I've been topping up on a daily basis depending how far I driven that day. Further update later.
Ordered new aluminium undertray as the back end on the fibre glass one has broken away on the drivers side.
No update yet on the flashing 3rd/5th issue as I'm awaiting an elearn cd so I hhave an idea which sensors are which before getting stuck in.

Another update. To find where the leak is coming from will require the removal of the battery tray, battery & other assorted gubbins so that the actuator can be seen better. Jeff at Southern Alfas will be having a look tomorrow and I'll report back.
After I saw Jeff today I came home and had a play with Alfadiag. Using a USB cable I managed to log on to the selespeed ecu & the main 7.3.1 ecu for a look see. On the selespeed ECU the speed sensor code was back after I had reset it so once I have identified it I'll try contact cleaner and then if needed a new sensor. I'm waiting for a book on diagnostic software from Practical mechanics and once I have that the Alfadiag may make some sense. It does show the battery voltage at 13.8 with the engine running however & the hydraulic pump giving 53barG which seems about right. More as I have it to report.

Update 3... I was at Southern Alfa this morning and Jeff has removed the battery & battery tray so we could get a look at the actuator. It took a little bit of searching but we found the leak. If you look at the actuator from the front of the car using a mirror to see the back there is a screw fitted at the rear at the top (above point 12 on the page relating to the Electro-hydraulic group on the Paul Denyer info). This appears to have a bleed port/breather hole built in to it but the leak seems to be coming from the threads, not the breather. Tightening the screw has reduced the leakage slightly but not completely.

The question now is ... what lives behind the screw? Is there perhaps an 'o' ring or gasket that is passing? Is there perhaps a spring (we didn't fancy unscrewing it to find out as we've both lost stuff by doing that before)? Any thoughts gratefully received.

At this point we cleaned all the actuator connectors and replaced everything whilst info is sought. Cleaning the contacts hasn't got rid of the flashing gear numbers in 3rd & 5th but that's currently a niggle rather than a worry.

If you remove that end cap on the actuator, you'll see that there is a push rod in there, a spring loaded sensor and there is an oil seal as part of the rear cap.

To be honest I wouldn't recomend opening it with the actuator on the gearbox. It is really fiddly to line it all up anyhow without the extra struggle of doing it on the car.

I don't know who Southern Alfa are, but i'd have thought they'd know what lives behind the end cap.

Have a l