Hey all, I just bought a 1998 Discovery. The ABS and check engine lights are on, but it generally seems like a strong running vehicle.

The PO said the PPO removed the fuses for ABS because he liked to go rock-crawling in it and didn't like the ABS kicking in. I replaced the fuses last night. Today the ABS kicks in with fairly light braking pressure (about half of the time I stop under normal conditions the pedal starts shaking). Any idea what could be causing this?

Do ABS faults get reported to the OBD2 port? I ordered an Ultra-Gauge today to get a better sense of what's going on with the vehicle.

 

You'd need a special scanner to read the ABS fault through the OBD2 port. But there are instructions out there of how to jumper some pins in the port to flash the light.

Most will tell you to just remove the fuse again. Getting the ABS to work on a D1 is very hit or miss. Some have had success. If you insist on it working, do a search here and you will find some instructions on fragile sensors to check and a few other things to check.

 

Open the hood, remove the ABS pump fuse from the underhood fuse box, close hood, problem solved.

If you really want to know what is wrong there is a "how to" in the DI tech section on reading the ABS codes, but you will most likely not like what it tells you because the parts are very very expensive.
If you are lucky it is to big of a air gap from the exciter ring and the ABS sensor, usually it is a bad ABS sensor or worse yet the ABS modulator.

 

Thanks for the tips. "ABS" is too short a term for the forum search (no results), I'm not sure how I missed the link in the tech tips thread.

Here are the codes my D1 returned:
Code 2-14 - Front left, too large an air gap or the sensor has been forced out by exciter ring.
Code 2-15 - Rear right, too large an air gap or the sensor has been forced out by exciter ring.
Code 4-14 - Front left, wiring to sensor broken or sensor resistance too high.
Code 5-14 - Front left, intermittent fault with sensor or wiring
Code 5-15 - Rear right, intermittent fault with sensor or wiring
Code 6-14 - Front left, no output from sensor, sensor may have too large an air gap.
Code 6-15 - Rear right, no output from sensor, sensor may have too large an air gap.

Seems like pulling the fuses may be the best solution.

 

Make sure you pull the ABS PUMP fuse from under the hood, pulling the ABS fuse from under the dash will not turn off the ABS pump, and that is what causes the brake pedal to push back at you and not stop.

 

Right. The previous-previous owner pulled both the 30 amp under the hood and the 5 amp under the steering wheel. I put them back in a couple days ago, but will pull them out today.

 

Leave the one under the dash, you only need to pull the 30A fuse under the hood.