Brake bleeding with ABS? PIA!!!

[Philippe]

Brake bleeding with ABS? PITA!!!

Ok, nobody laugh please, but after owning the car for 18 months, I just found out that is has ABS. The reason I just found out is because they've never worked and I don't get a light of any sort in the control panel when starting the car. First winter I had the car, I drove it, and I gracefully slid thru more then one intersections on snowy mornings without any hint of ABS brake activity.

Now I'm taking things apart to install the new suspension goodies and lo and behold, but here's the ABS sensor, and isn't that the toothed wheel?

Now, the calipers are already out of the car, figured it would be simpler to totally take them out since I'm putting in stainless steel brake lines.

The problem is the Haynes manual says that bleeding the brakes on an ABS equipped vehicle requires special tools and is complicated and blablabla.

Anybody here knows anything on this subject?

Thank you.

 

[tvmango]

just bleed them normally,, it's not any different.... unless you took the lines off the actuator pump, your all set....

 

[Philippe]

Well, I disconnected the lines from the calipers and let them drain totally. I wanted to change the fluid since it's the original one (10 years old).

I'd like to know too why the ABS never kicked in when I was sliding while braking?

 

[Mavrick]

If you drained the MC completely, you'll need to remove the MC and bench bleed it.

 

[trbkrb]

Hope it didn't all drain, if the ABS controller (aluminum box under the hood with all the brake lines on it) got an air bubble in it, it would be hard to bleed the brakes. But to answer your question on why they don't work, if the fluid has never been changed, part of the ABS system could have frozen. It is recommended to flush the fluid especially on ABS cars every couple of years to keep water and contaminants from damaging the system. And the bulb could have burned out from being on all the time, or maybe the seller just removed it.

If the MC still has fluid (hopefully) fill it up and replace the calipers & other parts, then bleed the brakes normally. If the MC is dry, you will need to bench bleed it to remove the air from it.

Good luck!