Rock me, I’m a danish.
Actually, what I told the Ogwife was, “Kiss me I’m a genius”
She’s been having difficulty with the ABS on the Escape, and I’m not in posession of the magical ABS scan tool, so it’s a tough diagnosis. I went through everything I knew- but no dice. Finally, unable to do much electronically, I started testing the air gap between the sensors and the tone ring, and found that one sensor was almost .120 high! it seems a piece of ice or dirt or something had gotten jammed up under the sensor and pushed it up, causing it to not sense the tone ring all the time. Woof!
Cleaned it, reaffixed it, and voila! A functional ABS system. Without anything but labor expended.
Good lord, am i glad of this.
13 comments Og | Uncategorized
I have my opinions about ABS. I know people who love it immensely. Nothing irritates me more than stepping on the pedal, expecting the vehicle to stop, and it not doing so.
I am a control freak, meaning that I want a tool to do exactly what I expect it to do. My personal vehicles are manual transmission, non-ABS, and if I could get rid of power brakes and steering and have them be manual, I’d do that too. Too bad they are standard anymore.
At work, I drive what I am issued. I took out a garage door in Tuesday’s blizzard, thanks ABS for letting the thing go when I said “Whoa.” I know how to snip the thing, but it’s not my vehicle to alter.
You can pull the ABS motor fuse, MTS. Keeps the stuff from doing it’s dumb thing.
Dang… Its like you were born to troubleshoot!
Sure beats forking over 300 dollars for a ‘repair’.
BRILLIANT!! Now go and get yourself a six-pack of Guiness!!
Good job, Og. Good diagnosis. Keep up the good work, and keep reminding the rest of us how to diagnose and fix stuff :)
Bloody well done, I say, and in a good cause, too.
M
It’s ALWAYS the simple stuff. I have to remind my Engineers of that daily.
I know it sucks when you’ve been highly educated and trained in some field like Electronics Engineering to find when you get out into the real world that most problems are as simple as just blowing the dirt of a sensor but that’s JUST THE WAY IT IS.
Don’t blame the messenger.
libs, truer words are rarely spoken.
Ain’t that the truth, Libs.
…and troubleshooting ELECTRONICS (and without any fancy gear)… that seperates the men from the boys. Thats why I said what I said to Og. He deserves the Kudos.
Again… hats off, Og!
Yeah, but we’uns live for that 2% that ain’t the simple stuff.
I get all giddy when I have to blow the dust off the oscope!!!
I concur, it’s usually the simple stuff. The biggest diagnostic headache I’ve had with my Alfa turned out to be a disconnected ground wire.
I did a little tune-up on Daughter’s car Friday – filters, plugs, and wires. The car ran worse after I was done than before I started. I thought “It can’t be related to what I just did, no way I screwed up plugs and wires!”
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Many moons ago a guy I know had a riding mower that wouldn’t start. Starter wouldn’t turn over. Dead.
He replaced the battery. Still dead.
Rebuilt the starter solenoid. Still dead.
Replaced the starter. Still dead.
Replaced the ignition key. Still dead.
He finally called me. I went over with multimeter in hand, made a couple voltage checks and told him he had a bad connection where the ground wire from the engine connected to the frame with a bolt. He gave me one of those, “Yeah-right-when-monkeys-fly-out-my-ass” looks. He turned the ground-bolt about a quarter turn, hit the starter and she fired right up.
I left immediately while dodging a hail of wrenches and foul language.
Yep. It’s ALWAYS the simple stuff.
Thanks! I had a guy tell me that I had to snip a wire leading to the line. This is a non-damaging way about it, a safe work-around. Heck, now I can buy a post 1998 vehicle! I was always wary of cutting wires, not knowing what computer was connected to which other smart panel. Let’s see what happens tomorrow.
BTW, new URL, new e-mail addy for me.