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ABS not working properly 1995 Legacy L 2.2


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The ABS system on my 1995 Legacy L Wagon has been giving me trouble lately. I recently did rear brake lines, front and rear pads and rotors on the car. After doing this I noticed the ABS kicks in when braking from 5mph and up under even the slightest braking, but the light does not appear on the dash. Once I get the car up to 25mph the ABS light turns on, and the ABS will not turn on at all. The light goes away when you restart the car. I have bleed the brakes twice since doing all the brake work and very well too, I am sure there is little to no air in the system. This leads me to believe that maybe one of the sensors is malfunction and giving false readings. I do not know which sensor if any that have gone bad, and do not want to spend the unnecessary cash to find out it does not solve the problem. Has anybody had this problem before and found a solution. Thanks.
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You probably disturbed one of the sensors (perhaps got brake dust or rust on it) or the tone ring. The sensor is magnetic, and the tone ring has alternating ridges. The sensor can tell how fast your wheel is spinning by how quickly the magnetic force fluctuates (the same way the speed sensors on a bike works if you've ever put one of those on.) I'd take a look and make sure the sensors are clean and properly situated.

 

IN THE MEANTIME, until you can get this resolved, PULL THE ABS FUSE AND DISABLE THE ABS. It's MUCH safer to drive a car without ABS than to drive on with over-active ABS, because all it means is you'll end up rear-ending someone when you go to brake and the ABS comes on for no reason. Your stopping distance will be greatly increased.

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if you accidentally dropped , or let the caliper dangle on the ABS sensor wire, you could have damaged that.

just a guess.

 

i would drive the car till the light comes on,

and then before you turn the ignition off i would try and read the codes.

but i'm not sure that is really possible.

i think part of the the codes reading process includes turning the ignition on.

 

as mentioned, double check the sensor to make sure they are clean and dust free.

look for loose wires, loose sensors, damaged tone ring.

 

the odd part is the ABS light not being on at start up.

i would think that once it threw a code it would remember that.

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  • 2 months later...
Finally got around to figuring out what the problem was. I haven't got to work on the car for awhile because I sold it to a friend that needed a cheap commuter car. They brought over the car the other day and it happened to be the front driver side tone ring. It was only half there. I don't know how or when it broke, but theres no doubt thats what the problem is. This car is very rusty, any advice anybody has before I tackle this , or is it a fairly simple thing to do. I'm going to replace it when I do the front CV boots which desperately need to be replaced.
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IIRC, the tone ring is bolted on with six bolts. When I had the bearing replaced in my right front hub, one of those bolts snapped when they were removing it and they had to drill it out. I don't think it's particularly difficult to get to, just that since you mention that the car is rusty, you might want to plan on drenching it in PB Blaster and letting it sit for a while just to try and help mitigate the chance of that happening to you.
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95 - 96, you have to remove the hub (replace the wheel bearing) to replace the tone ring.

there is no way to replace it without separating the hub from the knuckle.

 

so i recommend buying a used knuckle assembly from http://www.car-part.com . ($35)

 

i would order it from a NON-rust state, like arizona.

rust will not affect the tone ring, but it will affect all the bolts on the knuckle.

 

swap it in and drive on.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 year later...
The ABS system on my 1995 Legacy L Wagon has been giving me trouble lately. I recently did rear brake lines, front and rear pads and rotors on the car. After doing this I noticed the ABS kicks in when braking from 5mph and up under even the slightest braking, but the light does not appear on the dash. Once I get the car up to 25mph the ABS light turns on, and the ABS will not turn on at all. The light goes away when you restart the car. I have bleed the brakes twice since doing all the brake work and very well too, I am sure there is little to no air in the system. This leads me to believe that maybe one of the sensors is malfunction and giving false readings. I do not know which sensor if any that have gone bad, and do not want to spend the unnecessary cash to find out it does not solve the problem. Has anybody had this problem before and found a solution. Thanks.

 

I am having this same problem. I cannot see a problem with any of the tone rings or wiring to the sensors. Is there a code read that can be done to figure out which corner of the car is causing the issue?

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yes.

there is a black 6 pin connector under the dash ,

near the green test connectors (not intended to be connected all the time),

there will only be 3 or 4 pins in the connector,

and there will be 2 grounding wires/ pins bundled in with the harness.

use the grounding pin to ground out one of the pins in the connector and the codes will flash.

all of the pins in the connector are for diagnostices,

so there is not danger of damage.

each pin is for a different system.

SRS, air bags

TCU, auto trans codes

ABS, anti lock braking,

maybe more.

 

there is a little more to it than i have explained,

so do a search and find a better explanation.

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