[EdmondDantes]

Hello Alfa enthousiasts,

I recently bought a Phase 1 Alfa Spider 916. It is from 1996 and it is black. When I bought it it was clear the car needed some care (dash was a sticky mess, some (minor) electrical problems) but it seemed to run smooth.

While test driving the car behaved fine. Just before returning from the test drive I noticed a warning light had come on. I checked several forums and found out this was the fuel injector warning light and apparantly could be caused by a faulty sensor or worst case a faulty ECU. Because the car seemed to run fine I concluded there was a fair chance the warning light was caused by a faulty sensor. I agreed with the seller the car would get a new MOT and cam belt changed upon sale.

While driving home after I bought the car the warning light was not on so I figured the problem was gone. Just to be sure I bought a cable on ebay so I could hook the car up to a laptop. Using Multiecuscan i found some errors (will try to get a screenshot) and cleared them. Scanned again, errors seemed gone so far.

What bothers me is that the injection warning light never comes up, not even on startup. Same goes for the airbag light. I took out the part of the dash (surprised how easy this was) to check the light and the leds seemed to be ok. Checked out the fuse box and all fuses seemed ok. I did notice a few empty places where a relay could or should be (two empty sockets, one of them looks like there was a relay once since the holes where the pins go in were a little scratched/scuffed, I think it was marked E2). I ordered a service manual on ebay, when it arrives I'll check out what could or should be there.

I tried to find out what could cause the light to stay out but the most info I find on the warning lights is about the light coming on or about abs or just airbag lights. Is there any known cause for these lights to behave this way? A connector that may have been disconnected or something?

So far the only problem I noticed was when I went for a short drive the car did not respond when the gas pedal was pressed. Instead the revs dropped, after letting go of the pedal and stepping on it again it picked up again. This happened twice so far and I would love to known what causes this. I checked the rubber hoses in the engine bay for leaks but found nothing.

Any advise on how to troubleshoot these issues would be greatly appreciated!

 

[EdmondDantes]

Attached screenshot of Multiecuscan & warning lights startup

 

[spankdanny]

Take out the instrument binnacle again and double check that it hasn't been tampered with. Air bag and engine management lights are MOT failures if on. I take it the code light goes off after a second.

 

[EdmondDantes]

The air bag light should be on as there is connector under the seat the is not connected to anything. I checked the leds quite carefully, no pins had been cut nor were there any traces of soldering. All leds seemed undamaged. Milage on the unit was the same. I will check again though just to be sure.

The key light indeed goes off quite quick and the car starts every time. Same for ABS light. Not sure if I ever saw that disc break light come on.

Seems to me this was probably done to pass MOT. I hope no serious damage is done and this is a matter of a loose connector or cut wire.

 

[spankdanny]

Have a read of the current thread called Spider 916 ph2. A similar problem but with the oil pressure light. See if you can interest a member called pkr in your problem. He is the resident Electrics guru and knows his onions.

 

[verybadman]

Insulating tape inside the binnacle can hide a multitude of warning lights, might be worth completely disassembling and checking.

 

[EdmondDantes]

Solved!!! I checked the binnacle, there were some bits of masking tape stuffed into the hole of the warning led and on the back of that black bit with the airbag warning light. Cannot believe I did not notice these when I took the unit apart before. After refitting the unit both warning lights come on on MAR and unfortunatly stay on. The airbag warning light was expected (the parts attatched to the seat where you click in the seatbelt don't have connectors. Seems they were removed and replaced by some universal part. Will need to find new units and see what happend when those are connected. If anyone has some spare units I would love to hear). However I hoped the fuel injector warning light would go off since cleared the errors a while ago.