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I had an odd experience when doing my rotors on my ranger and thought I would share, hoping it would help someone else with the same problem at some point. I’ve seen other posts with the same problem but mine had a slightly different solution.
TRUCK:
2009 Ford Ranger V6 4.0 2WD
ISSUE:
I had just replaced my front rotors (Bendix PRT5076), pads and bearings and went for a test drive down the road and noticed my ABS was coming on consistently when coming to a stop, when I was between 3mph - 5mph. For example, I would be driving down my street at 25mph and when slowing to a stop, when I reached 5mph, the ABS would come on and I would have to let go of the pedal and brake again in order to stop, or just push down on the pedal harder.
POSSIBLE PROBLEMS:
After reading all the posts I could find, these were the most common problems that I could find that would cause this issue.
-Bent / broken exciter ring (mine were perfectly flat and were identical to the previous rotors I had, but the placement was different as I’ll explain below).
-Broken sensors - when the ABS would kick in and I let go of the steering wheel, the steering wheel would go to the left, leading me to believe that it was the right side giving me problem. I replaced the sensor and still had the same problem. I tested the other sensor (they were both 1k / 1000 ohms in case that helps anyone).
MY SOLUTION:
To make sure it was the ABS, I unplugged one of the sensors and the problem went away, but I no longer had ABS and the ABS light lit up on the dash. I then checked my excitor rings in my rotors and compared them to the ones that were previously on the truck and they were identical, the only difference was that the excitor ring was further from the sensor on the new ones (more towards the outside of the wheel). I put the rotor back on and through the vents, I could see the sensor. I read online that the air gap should be between 0.005” and 0.045”. On mine, it looked to be about 0.125”. So I took out the sensors and ground down the mounting portion of the sensor by a little more than 1/16” (I attached an image of the surface I ground down). I reinstalled it and looked at the airgap and just got it to the point where it looked like it was just under 1/16”. I’ve been driving it for a few days now and it hasn’t kicked in since.
I could’ve just contacted Bendix and gotten new rotors but I didn’t want to have to wait and make a big deal out of it. If you guys have any questions, I’ll do my best to answer them.
yea this is/was the issue on mine i think. Perfectly fine lookign rings but would activate at low speeds. Long story short i ended up accidently breaking the mounting hole off trying to get the sensor out. I tapped the sensor farther in and its been fine since. havent had a single abs issue since. oddly was just the right front even when i swapped rotors. My guess is the spindle is just a hair fatter on that side causing things to just get out of spec.
yea this is/was the issue on mine i think. Perfectly fine lookign rings but would activate at low speeds. Long story short i ended up accidently breaking the mounting hole off trying to get the sensor out. I tapped the sensor farther in and its been fine since. havent had a single abs issue since. oddly was just the right front even when i swapped rotors. My guess is the spindle is just a hair fatter on that side causing things to just get out of spec.
yea mine was both rotors. I thought maybe I installed them wrong somehow so I took the rear seal off one of them and kind of dry fit them to make sure nothing was binding and there was still too big of an air gap for the sensor. Then I remembered I was actually able to see the slight difference in the placement of the tone ring.
Im about to replace a driver side sensor on my 4x2
My question is can i do this without having to take the wheel/caliper etc off? from what i can see from just looking at it from behind the wheel it looks like i can, I just don't want to start yanking on parts lol
Im about to replace a driver side sensor on my 4x2
My question is can i do this without having to take the wheel/caliper etc off? from what i can see from just looking at it from behind the wheel it looks like i can, I just don't want to start yanking on parts lol
I was able to do it with the tire on, I just removed the one bolt holding on the sensor and undid the connector, it’s really quick.
yea mine was both rotors. I thought maybe I installed them wrong somehow so I took the rear seal off one of them and kind of dry fit them to make sure nothing was binding and there was still too big of an air gap for the sensor. Then I remembered I was actually able to see the slight difference in the placement of the tone ring.
When I replaced my rotors on my 4x2, the tone rings were actually "too far" out, and not quite properly mounted inwards. They are just pressed on, nothing special, so I carefully worked around the rotor as I spun it by hand and tapped them in from the back until I couldn't hear them hit my ABS ring.
When I replaced my rotors on my 4x2, the tone rings were actually "too far" out, and not quite properly mounted inwards. They are just pressed on, nothing special, so I carefully worked around the rotor as I spun it by hand and tapped them in from the back until I couldn't hear them hit my ABS ring.
Could you have just done the opposite of what I did and put some washers for spacers so that the sensor would have sat farther out from the tone ring?
Could you have just done the opposite of what I did and put some washers for spacers so that the sensor would have sat farther out from the tone ring?
I probably could of gotten away with it, the issue was that some of the tone ring was spaced properly, and some wasn't. Easiest way to describe it would be to say the tone ring had excessive run-out. It was stupid easy to get it situated into the correct spot though.
I probably could of gotten away with it, the issue was that some of the tone ring was spaced properly, and some wasn't. Easiest way to describe it would be to say the tone ring had excessive run-out. It was stupid easy to get it situated into the correct spot though.
Gotcha, mine was perfectly straight, just too far from the sensor.
