ABS light

[spederman]

My ABS light keeps coming on intermittently. It does it half the time after i drive it. About 10-15 min worth of driving and if i get on it hard, the light clicks on. If i shut the car off, and turn it back on, its gone. Its never there right from start up.

It started doing this after i took my car mud boggin through a ditch at 80mph (not on purpose,not making a habit of this ). I assume its prolly some mud that got into the ABS sensors since all the wheels were caked with mud.

Where on the brakes are the ABS sensors? Does each wheel have one? How do i clean them out or test the sensor to see if its working? Also, I heard that you need a special code reader to read the ABS codes, will the XCAL 2 read ABS codes?

 

[ron97]

I had the ABS light also, have a 97 GT, on my car there is a red box next to the power supply box in the engine compartment on the left side, its got anti lock test on the top. There is a way to wire a jumper on two of the contacts in the box, then when you turn your ignition on, the ABS light will flash giving you a code that tells you what's broke. Mine flashed 3 and then 2, 32 means the right rear sensor is bad. The internet has the codes, and jumper contacts.

 

[BCB00GT]

Take the wheel off the car. Look down behind the rotor and you will see a small metal "stem" just over the wheel hub (which has teeth). The metal "stem" is the pickup sensor to make sure the hub is turning. There is a E8 star screw that holds the sensor to the spindle. Either use the E8 socket and remove to clean (preferred) or just spray brake cleaner using the straw attachment.

Also, each wheel has one sensor. Clean all and the drive the car to see if you still have the light. Basically if your hub has lot of crap such that the sensor can not pickup the "teeth", then the sensor thinks the hub isn't moving. You may need to clean the "teeth" area of the hub for the one you went boggin in.

 

[BobHyatt]

another way to get the ABS light to intermittently go on...

run different sized tires/wheels on different corners of the car. The ABS computer does not like to see a steady-state where some sensors are reporting higher wheel RPM than others. It assumes something is amiss. Using the donut spare can cause this, it has on ours...

 

[97speedster]

Mine did this for awhile and I traced to different sized tires from front to rear just enough of a difference to intermitantly cause the abs light to come on. I had only 1 1/4" difference from front to back.

 

[spederman]

Thanks guys. I'm sure it has to prolly do with dirty abs sensors, instead of the tire size. I've never run the correct size tires on this car since i bought it new and its never given me the abs light. Its only started since after i got in this wreck.

 

[the98stang]

As soon as I put Hawk pads on my stang the ABS light came on. Those brakes create so much brake dust it's ridiculous. You can take some Q-tips and clean the sensors on each wheel...that might fix the problem. If it's not the sensors it's the actual ABS unit itself. The dealership is the only place that can tell you which sensor(s) is bad or if it's the ABS unit. A special ABS code reader is required.

 

[rabidscoobie]

A couple years back I had that same problem,have no idea why.But I took off the battery cables for about 15 mins and then reconnected and havnt seen the light since.That light just came on for no reason,I didnt pull your stunt nor did I work on anything at all...it just came on.btw I have an 01 GT.