ABS light flickers, speedometer goes crazy, truck is bucking
 

I have had a very eventful day today, drove to work truck was fine, got off started truck up and drove to get gas. Filled up and truck wouldn’t start, no lights, i thought the battery was completely dead so i called someone to come give me a jump. no lights no crank after letting battery charge for ten minutes. towed with a strap to nearest autozone. i got to autozone, saw that fluid was leaking so i opened hood and power steering fluid had bursted out of the reservoir and got all over my front drivers side suspension and abs system in the engine bay. finally figured out that i had a bad battery cable so i changed it and started it up and i drove it around the parking lot and the abs light came on and the truck started bucking and the speedometer went crazy. i limped it home and cleaned my suspension and abs system off and drove it some more and the problem consisted but it would go away sometimes and come back. Any thoughts or answers would be greatly appreciated

In a 2000 Ranger ABS and speedometer share a common sensor, its on the rear axle, the ABS VSS sensor
Its not hard or expensive to change

My only worry would be a short in the engine bay wiring caused by the ATF(power steering) fluid, it DOES conduct electricity so can short wires if it gets inside connectors
Rear axle sensor would be common denominator but wiring is as well since they share that one sensor

May i add that when traveling at low speeds (>10) it doesn’t happen. Do you think it could have shorted it all the way to the rear speed sensor? i figured it was the front left abs module that was giving me the problem. Thank you for your help

The wiring from rear ABS sensor runs to the front where the ABS module is.........................that was my worry, having the same issue after replacing the rear sensor because its a wiring issue, short at ABS sensor wire for rear sensor

But if there had been no Power steering blow out...................And you said ABS light flashes and speedometer acts up, at the same time, in a 2000 Ranger, then I would for sure say replace the rear ABS sensor FIRST thing

So you are there I am not, you have to make the call

Front wheel ABS sensor issue wouldn't effect speedometer at all

Would there be a fuse that had blown out that needs replaced? And are you saying that after replacing the sensor it will short out again because of the wiring issue?

No, the ABS and speedometer do not share a fuse, and blown fuse would cause full time ABS light or no speedometer at all

I am saying you could replace the rear axle sensor and it may not fix the issue because the wires shorting out is the problem
Its FREE to unplug look inside and clean all the effected connections on that side of the engine bay, so you could do that first

I cleaned all of the abs connections and problem solved. Thank you so much!! 😊

Good work :biggthump

Thanks for the update and THE FIX