Somewhere along the line, someone pulled out the 50 amp fuse and the little fuse for ABS from the under hood power box of my 98 4.0.

Anything I should watch out for when I go to put those fuses back in and try it out?

 

A large explosion coming from the rear axle.

 

Honestly - they probably had it pulled out for winter as ABS tends to pretty much scare the living **** out of you during winter in any newer truck with it enabled. Just put the fuse back in, get on some pavement.. go about 35 and slam on the brakes... Hopefully it will kick back in and work well, maybe find a straight gravel road and go about 15ish on it and hit the brakes real hard too.

 

Thanks Mike. I'll give it a shot. I read all the other posts about people disabling theirs because of weird performance, but I actually like it. Didn't read anyone complaining about a rear axle exploding though.

 

I find ABS to ONLY be helpful on dry pavement, it helps you not lock yoru brakes up and skid that last 30 feet, when you can stop in 15. During icy/snowy weather, the system feels your brakes sliding and does that release/lock thingy that thy do and pretty much make you slide right down hill through an intersection like you were purposefully wanting to run through it - doesnt help at all.. in gravel it oes the same thing, good freakin luck stopping goign down hill - the only reason ABS hasnt come near to killing me in snowy conditions and on extra steep gravel hills is because I use my transmission to slow me down (5 spd manual).. drop it down to first and pop the clutch out... saves your **** if ABS wants to kick in =)

 

Well, turns out I can't put the fuses back in because the receivers in the fuse box have actually been taken out. I'll have to check behind it and see what they did, but seems like a disincentive to worry about it right now.

 

if they went through all the trouble to take out the recievers, maybe it was for a reason.. You even sure your truck has ABS?

 

I have an ABS light on a dash and an ABS sensor on the differential. . . when I searched for threads on ABS, lots of people wanted to disable them without looking at the dash light. Seems like a previous owner figured out an elegant way of doing that. But, like you say, maybe it was for some other reason, which is why I started this thread in the first place.

 

Two things I found out about my ABS.

1) Tires matter: The AT tires I have on there now offer much improved traction over the OEM tires. This helps the tires from 'skidding' as they have more traction.

2) Rear brakes: When the truck was new, my rear brakes would lock and not disengage in the rain. There may be a thread around here about that... like from 2004/2005? Anyways, the dealer messed with the rear brakes and the truck never stopped the same till now.

With that said... Me and a 'friend' did my rear brakes about 6 weeks ago, after I ended up rescueing my friend from a pond, and then had to 'show him how its done' kinda deal.... That little mudding trip I believe caused problem number 2 that I happened to have while ABS was disabled; my brakes, my rears would lock up on dry pavement during normal braking.

Again me and my 'friend' resolved this by purging the air that was in my brake lines. I still have abs enabled.. new rear breaks, and no air in the lines... and ABS seems to be functioning like it supposed to.

This is after driving the truck for 3 years with no ABS.