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OK, I know it’s a old van but it’s in pretty good shape, runs good and only has about 166,000 Km on it. My daughter, who drives it along with my wife, would very much like us to sell it and get a new car, but I just can’t afford that!! 🙁
So, I have to keep it going…:cheer:
For some time now the ABS light will come on. It usually happens when I step on the brake pedal but may just come on while we’re driving. Happens very intermittently maybe only once in a couple of weeks and will usually go off if we shut off the engine and re-start it.
I have the service manual, but in the section that talks about the ABS it says to use a “DRB Scan Tool” and then refer to the “1994 Bendix Antilock 4 Diagnostics Manual”… I have neither of these. The brakes where replaced (pads, rotors, shoes, ETC) a couple of years back (not that many miles ago, it’s not driven that much) and when I look at them they seem to be fine. The brakes seem to work OK as well, except when the light comes on there’s a strange noise like a pump (I’m assuming that’s the ABS pump/motor) and the brake pedal goes down a bit, but the brakes still work.
Anyone have any idea how I can proceed without the scan tool and/or the manual, or am I stuck without them?
Thanks in advance,
Gord
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Remove the 40 Amp ABS fuse and the brakes will just be as a non ABS system. You probably have a bad sensor or tone ring at one or more of the wheels. I’ve got a Snap On MT2500 scanner which will allow me to bleed the ABS brakes but I decided I didn’t want to put the time and money into the repair and to just remove the fuse and use the brakes without the ABS. All my tone rings were so rusted and flaking that even if the sensors were good they wouldn’t work right. But without a proper scanner you can’t bleed the ABS brakes.
Interesting idea. I can honestly say I had not thought of just removing the fuse… but it sounds like a good option.
Do you think there’s any point in trying to clean up the tone rings and see how it goes? Is it just a waste of time? Can it hurt?
Thanks again.
+1 on making it a non-ABS van however it would be nice to have ABS. That said cleaning the sensors isn’t a bad idea. You might be able to have an auto parts store pull the ABS code for you, some of them have scanners capable of doing this.
Disabling the ABS works fine until you get in a collision with injuries, and the other party’s lawyer finds out through the discovery process that you willingly disabled a safety feature (ABS) of your car. Yikes I would not want to be staring down the barrel of that lawsuit.
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