Clean & Simple ABS removal
11-17-02, 08:53 PM
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Clean & Simple ABS removal
Hi all,
Just thought I'd share my weekend project with you:
Removing the ABS in my 1989 Turbo II
I had a few goals to meet:
1) No loopy lines thank you, I want my engine compartment to look clean and stock
2) Retain the turbo ABS master cylinder, it's got 15% more piston area than the stock non-ABS master. It's also aluminum and the non-ABS is heavy cast iron!
3) Don't get me wrong, I love tools, but lets do this with what's in the toolbox already. No flare tools, bending tools, or pipe cutters please.
4) Try to keep it under $100
So in order to meet goal #1, I decided I would use factory non-ABS lines instead of the well used cut-n-splice method. This also saves me from having to make flares, etc. which would violate goal #3
I thought about going to the junkyard to retrieve non-ABS lines from a boneyard 7 but this seemed like too much trouble considering:
Front-Right Non-ABS Pipe FB01-45-280E $25.99
Front-Left Non-ABS Pipe FB01-45-320 $11.50
Rear Non-ABS Pipe FB01-45-360C $41.46
This leaves me with $21.05 for brake fluid and master cylinder adaptation parts. No problem!
While these were on order I found an M10-1.0MM double banjo bolt and some 10MM copper washers at work. Cool! The ABS pump already has two M10-1.0MM inverted flare banjo fittings on it which when used with the aforementioned bolt will allow the master's single front output to connect to both front calipers. Goal #2 is nearly met.
Now it's off to AutoZone where I purchase a straight 12" long pre-made Japanese brake line for $1.38 plus two bottles of Valvoline brake fluid at $5.99 each.
I've spent a total of $92.31 and I'm all ready to go.
OKAY: Precationary note! Don't try this at home if you're not competant to perform brake work. The consequences of your errors are NOT my responsibility and could lead to serious injury, property damage or death! You've been warned and so has your legal team!
To properly remove / install break lines one must:
remove the intercooler
remove the trailing coil pack
remove a few brackets here and there
get the car as high off the ground as possible
Remove the LHS cat hanger
Carefully pop lines out of plastic underbody holders
most of all: be very patient!
Threading a 7 foot long brake pipe through the chassis must be done slowly and carefully. It CAN be done with the engine and drive line in place. I also unbolted the vacuum piping that goes between the brake booster and the engine to keep the threading down to a minimum.
I wont go into a detailed step by step, but the removal of the old lines can be done without cutting or distorting them. Again, careful threading can avoid kinks, etc. I don't know why I preserved all these lines, but I did and so can you if you really want to.
The new lines went in quite easily to my surprise, even the long underbody line. Hint: Start from the rear of the car with the underbody line and rotate it into position over the sub-frame. Be careful how you poke this line up into the engine bay, the fuel lines and speedo cable all have to be clear of the line's final position. I found I had to adjust one of the bends for it to find it's way 'home'. That's not bad considering it got shipped from some warehouse with only little baggies over the ends for protection.
The front lines required little to no effort to thread and anchor. I re-used the plastic clips that held the ABS lines to the body but had to re-position a few of them. It was cool to find that the holes for the non-ABS anchor locations were previously punched by Mazda for the occation!
The only real modification of the previous system was the removal of the factory line from the proportioning valve to the master's front outlet. I then installed my 12" line (gently bent over a pipe into shape) with it's newly attached banjo fitting in it's place. This line was required to allow for the proper 'clocking' of the banjos at the master. The original was either too short or too long for the task and could not be safely bent.
I did find that the banjo bolt was a little too long and did not allow the copper washers to crush before it bottomed on the seat of the port. I ground two threads off and counter-bored it a little to improve this fit. If I were to do it again I think I'd have the master off the car and mill the seat out. At the same time I'd surface the master cylinder's front port for better sealing against the copper washer. Still, without those modification the system works well and does not leak.
After re-assembly and bleeding of the system I put the car back on the ground and took it for a spin. The pedal felt no different than before for the most part. Maybe it was a bit firmer and more responsive as the line length was dramtically reduced. Still the factory rubber lines to the struts could never deliver what I call a good pedal feel. This would have been an ideal time to upgrade to SS lines, but that would have blown my budget!
At threshold-'plus' breaking the car seemed to get pretty light in the rear and wanted to come around, but this is to be expected. It was easy to control and I suspect a non-ABS RX would duplicate this. As a side note, the proportioning valve for either car has the same part number in 1989, so I did not replace this for this project, nor will I in the future.
For me the project was a great sucess and I met all of my goals so I'm happy.
Feel free to shoot me any questions.
Sorry there arn't any pictures, Nikon is holding my camera for ransom right now.
Just thought I'd share my weekend project with you:
Removing the ABS in my 1989 Turbo II
I had a few goals to meet:
1) No loopy lines thank you, I want my engine compartment to look clean and stock
2) Retain the turbo ABS master cylinder, it's got 15% more piston area than the stock non-ABS master. It's also aluminum and the non-ABS is heavy cast iron!
3) Don't get me wrong, I love tools, but lets do this with what's in the toolbox already. No flare tools, bending tools, or pipe cutters please.
4) Try to keep it under $100
So in order to meet goal #1, I decided I would use factory non-ABS lines instead of the well used cut-n-splice method. This also saves me from having to make flares, etc. which would violate goal #3
I thought about going to the junkyard to retrieve non-ABS lines from a boneyard 7 but this seemed like too much trouble considering:
Front-Right Non-ABS Pipe FB01-45-280E $25.99
Front-Left Non-ABS Pipe FB01-45-320 $11.50
Rear Non-ABS Pipe FB01-45-360C $41.46
This leaves me with $21.05 for brake fluid and master cylinder adaptation parts. No problem!
While these were on order I found an M10-1.0MM double banjo bolt and some 10MM copper washers at work. Cool! The ABS pump already has two M10-1.0MM inverted flare banjo fittings on it which when used with the aforementioned bolt will allow the master's single front output to connect to both front calipers. Goal #2 is nearly met.
Now it's off to AutoZone where I purchase a straight 12" long pre-made Japanese brake line for $1.38 plus two bottles of Valvoline brake fluid at $5.99 each.
I've spent a total of $92.31 and I'm all ready to go.
OKAY: Precationary note! Don't try this at home if you're not competant to perform brake work. The consequences of your errors are NOT my responsibility and could lead to serious injury, property damage or death! You've been warned and so has your legal team!
To properly remove / install break lines one must:
remove the intercooler
remove the trailing coil pack
remove a few brackets here and there
get the car as high off the ground as possible
Remove the LHS cat hanger
Carefully pop lines out of plastic underbody holders
most of all: be very patient!
Threading a 7 foot long brake pipe through the chassis must be done slowly and carefully. It CAN be done with the engine and drive line in place. I also unbolted the vacuum piping that goes between the brake booster and the engine to keep the threading down to a minimum.
I wont go into a detailed step by step, but the removal of the old lines can be done without cutting or distorting them. Again, careful threading can avoid kinks, etc. I don't know why I preserved all these lines, but I did and so can you if you really want to.
The new lines went in quite easily to my surprise, even the long underbody line. Hint: Start from the rear of the car with the underbody line and rotate it into position over the sub-frame. Be careful how you poke this line up into the engine bay, the fuel lines and speedo cable all have to be clear of the line's final position. I found I had to adjust one of the bends for it to find it's way 'home'. That's not bad considering it got shipped from some warehouse with only little baggies over the ends for protection.
The front lines required little to no effort to thread and anchor. I re-used the plastic clips that held the ABS lines to the body but had to re-position a few of them. It was cool to find that the holes for the non-ABS anchor locations were previously punched by Mazda for the occation!
The only real modification of the previous system was the removal of the factory line from the proportioning valve to the master's front outlet. I then installed my 12" line (gently bent over a pipe into shape) with it's newly attached banjo fitting in it's place. This line was required to allow for the proper 'clocking' of the banjos at the master. The original was either too short or too long for the task and could not be safely bent.
I did find that the banjo bolt was a little too long and did not allow the copper washers to crush before it bottomed on the seat of the port. I ground two threads off and counter-bored it a little to improve this fit. If I were to do it again I think I'd have the master off the car and mill the seat out. At the same time I'd surface the master cylinder's front port for better sealing against the copper washer. Still, without those modification the system works well and does not leak.
After re-assembly and bleeding of the system I put the car back on the ground and took it for a spin. The pedal felt no different than before for the most part. Maybe it was a bit firmer and more responsive as the line length was dramtically reduced. Still the factory rubber lines to the struts could never deliver what I call a good pedal feel. This would have been an ideal time to upgrade to SS lines, but that would have blown my budget!
At threshold-'plus' breaking the car seemed to get pretty light in the rear and wanted to come around, but this is to be expected. It was easy to control and I suspect a non-ABS RX would duplicate this. As a side note, the proportioning valve for either car has the same part number in 1989, so I did not replace this for this project, nor will I in the future.
For me the project was a great sucess and I met all of my goals so I'm happy.
Feel free to shoot me any questions.
Sorry there arn't any pictures, Nikon is holding my camera for ransom right now.
11-17-02, 09:44 PM
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The rear line on an ABS car goes from the rear axle to the ABS pump on the RHS of the car. The non-ABS line goes directly to the proportioning valve on the LHS of the car. In order to meet my goal#3 I had to replace the line (no cutting, flaring, or new tools allowed). The orignal rear lines from the distribution block out to the calipers were not changed.
11-17-02, 09:50 PM
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Im not trying to be rude, but more, confuessed, why would you remove your abs? is it for some racing regulation? or what? please explain i dont have abs, and wish i did, yeah its kinda fun when you mash on the breaks and start sliding, but not when you need to stop? sorry if im being ignorant
11-17-02, 10:00 PM
#5
On my non-abs GXL, I can mash the brakes from like 80MPH, and I will just be stuck to my seatbelt as my car screams to a stop. I have never slid in my rx-7 when I needed to stop fast. Im sure the ABS would help on gravel or maybe uneven surfaces, but Ive never had a problem with my non-ABS braking sytem.
11-17-02, 10:02 PM
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No offence taken Ra Ra Rotary!
I removed the ABS primarily because I didn't like the way it engaged and it blocked my access to working on the turbo. It's also quite suceptable to heat-prone failure as it sits nearly over the turbo. Most people find it starts leaking, and at $2,300 from the dealer to replace it's a quick easy choice to erradicate it. Mine seemed fine and worked as advertised before I removed it, but at 13 years and counting it's only a matter of time.
Don't get me wrong, ABS isn' really a bad thing. The ABS in my Wife's GTi VR6 works quite well. Just a personal preference for the most part. Besides, I will be using the wheel speed sensors for data logging and perhaps traction control some day.
I removed the ABS primarily because I didn't like the way it engaged and it blocked my access to working on the turbo. It's also quite suceptable to heat-prone failure as it sits nearly over the turbo. Most people find it starts leaking, and at $2,300 from the dealer to replace it's a quick easy choice to erradicate it. Mine seemed fine and worked as advertised before I removed it, but at 13 years and counting it's only a matter of time.
Don't get me wrong, ABS isn' really a bad thing. The ABS in my Wife's GTi VR6 works quite well. Just a personal preference for the most part. Besides, I will be using the wheel speed sensors for data logging and perhaps traction control some day.
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11-18-02, 12:13 AM
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Traction control is generally referred to as a function used to limit tire slip under heavy acceleration. ABS is used to limit tire slide under heavy braking. Same idea of maintianing traction but opposite in function. Both systems rely on some method for determining wheel speed vs. ground speed.
For ABS: Wheel Speed < Ground Speed = Activate
For Traction control: Wheel Speed > Ground Speed = Activate
Many aftermarket engine managment systems offer traction control as a feature. It's something I'd like to experiment with. Perhaps it will go the way of the ABS system, but it will be fun to play around with none-the-less!
For ABS: Wheel Speed < Ground Speed = Activate
For Traction control: Wheel Speed > Ground Speed = Activate
Many aftermarket engine managment systems offer traction control as a feature. It's something I'd like to experiment with. Perhaps it will go the way of the ABS system, but it will be fun to play around with none-the-less!
11-18-02, 01:43 PM
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I am in the process of doing this on my car. The thing is, I couldn't find those part numbers, so I just went to the jyard and got them.
But I did it with replacing the master cylinder with a non-abs new one ordered from maxdatrix, so my price is a little higher.
For those of you who want to do this and not fabricate anything youself, the proportioning valve is the same for both abs and non, however then lines between the cylinder and the valve are different, so you will need to replace those.
But I did it with replacing the master cylinder with a non-abs new one ordered from maxdatrix, so my price is a little higher.
For those of you who want to do this and not fabricate anything youself, the proportioning valve is the same for both abs and non, however then lines between the cylinder and the valve are different, so you will need to replace those.
11-18-02, 02:42 PM
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Hey, thanks for not screaming at me for asking a question haha. Yes, rxfm7, I live in washington, so its really really wet all the time, but when its dry, i wont slide. And as for the abs removal, sounds like a good idea intead of 2300 dollers haha. thanks
11-18-02, 05:57 PM
#15
Yeah I did this too after my second ABS box started leaking. It was a used one for $50, but it started leaking after about 2 months. And it had never even activated! Piece of crap.
Wouldn't it have been better to do the job with new tools? It might have been cheaper overall and you get to have new tools in your toolbox.
Wouldn't it have been better to do the job with new tools? It might have been cheaper overall and you get to have new tools in your toolbox.
11-19-02, 09:38 AM
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Gene,
New tools are always good. I can't say that I've ever been opposed to adding to my collection either. I just thought this was a new angle on a tired out subject and went for it.
To tell the truth I'm surprised this thread has floated up the list for this long. I guess the BBS being down helps stave off the inevitable plunge into the archives.
I'm definately happy with the results. I'm even going to go out on a limb after driving the car for a day and say the pedal is better too.
New tools are always good. I can't say that I've ever been opposed to adding to my collection either. I just thought this was a new angle on a tired out subject and went for it.
To tell the truth I'm surprised this thread has floated up the list for this long. I guess the BBS being down helps stave off the inevitable plunge into the archives.
I'm definately happy with the results. I'm even going to go out on a limb after driving the car for a day and say the pedal is better too.
11-19-02, 02:03 PM
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Actually they'd probably give you a discount for REMOVING the ABS! The Insurance companies were the first to find out that most people don't know how to use ABS properly and may even end up crashing because of it!
Remember, the WHOLE idea of ABS is to keep directional control of the car. If your wheels are locked the car will go in a straight line. If the wheels are not locked you can still steer! Also note that you will have more stopping power if the wheels are not sliding. As an aside, it will take you longer to stop with ABS active compared to threshold braking, but you will stop in a shorter distance than you would if you were skidding.
So when Granny gets into the ABS she reacts in one of two common ways, both are in error:
1) Granny closes her eyes and locks her elbows. this is usually followed by the sound of twisting metal.
2) Granny lifts completely off the pedal because it was vibrating and kicking back, very scary! Again we hear twisting metal.
Granny SHOULD have turned the wheel to avoid the oncomming collision while keeping her foot firmly planted on the pedal allowing the ABS to do the threshold braking for her.
If you don't believe me, then the next time you're driving around with an usupecting friend, relative, etc in their automotvie-appliance-like sedan with ABS, get them to stomp on the pedal (in a SAFE area) as hard as they can at 40MPH and see what they do. Unless they've RTFM and paid attention to it I will bet you they do #1 or #2 above.
Remember, the WHOLE idea of ABS is to keep directional control of the car. If your wheels are locked the car will go in a straight line. If the wheels are not locked you can still steer! Also note that you will have more stopping power if the wheels are not sliding. As an aside, it will take you longer to stop with ABS active compared to threshold braking, but you will stop in a shorter distance than you would if you were skidding.
So when Granny gets into the ABS she reacts in one of two common ways, both are in error:
1) Granny closes her eyes and locks her elbows. this is usually followed by the sound of twisting metal.
2) Granny lifts completely off the pedal because it was vibrating and kicking back, very scary! Again we hear twisting metal.
Granny SHOULD have turned the wheel to avoid the oncomming collision while keeping her foot firmly planted on the pedal allowing the ABS to do the threshold braking for her.
If you don't believe me, then the next time you're driving around with an usupecting friend, relative, etc in their automotvie-appliance-like sedan with ABS, get them to stomp on the pedal (in a SAFE area) as hard as they can at 40MPH and see what they do. Unless they've RTFM and paid attention to it I will bet you they do #1 or #2 above.
11-19-02, 02:09 PM
#21
Haha, thats so true. My mom was driving in her Jeep , and had to stop suddenly. The pedal started pulsating and making a griding noise, so she let off and started pumping it 
Luckily we didnt need to stop in that big of a hurry. After that I taught her what it was, and how it worked, so hopefully she wont kill herself now.
Luckily we didnt need to stop in that big of a hurry. After that I taught her what it was, and how it worked, so hopefully she wont kill herself now.
12-19-03, 12:34 PM
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no kidding i dont understand why pepl would even drive if they dont understand things like this........i mean if you didnt know which pedal was the gas would you drive............well ok in the sense of adventure ¡Hell Yes!
but in all seriousnessness.....hehe....i think if more pepl took the time to read or ask about simple functions of things they use everyday the roads would be a little safer!
most teens dont even read there drivers handbook, they could tell you where to go to make your aim profile use colored text and little animation of some cartton gurl.......but all they know about there '00 civic is where the gas goes and how to tell when it needs it!
this isn't everyone, of course, but i get real fed up with those i am discribing.
just my opinion.
but in all seriousnessness.....hehe....i think if more pepl took the time to read or ask about simple functions of things they use everyday the roads would be a little safer!
most teens dont even read there drivers handbook, they could tell you where to go to make your aim profile use colored text and little animation of some cartton gurl.......but all they know about there '00 civic is where the gas goes and how to tell when it needs it!
this isn't everyone, of course, but i get real fed up with those i am discribing.
just my opinion.
11-30-06, 09:29 AM
#24
Haven't we ALL heard this
Nice write up man... we need more pictures to illustrate what you did
I have told my self once my pump starts leaking it is out.
However, it did save the car one time. I was hauling *** around an on-ramp to a highway. And miss.granny was stopped in the merging area. I really had not choice but to slam on the brakes in a hard turn. ABS worked perfectly and I came to stop...while braking hard and steering. From that point on the ABS earned its keep in the engine bay.
James
I have told my self once my pump starts leaking it is out.
However, it did save the car one time. I was hauling *** around an on-ramp to a highway. And miss.granny was stopped in the merging area. I really had not choice but to slam on the brakes in a hard turn. ABS worked perfectly and I came to stop...while braking hard and steering. From that point on the ABS earned its keep in the engine bay.
James
11-30-06, 01:04 PM
#25
Holy resurrection. Glad to see it though.
Try that when it's wet out... And yes, I'm replying to a quote that's 4 years old.
Originally Posted by Rxmfn7
On my non-abs GXL, I can mash the brakes from like 80MPH, and I will just be stuck to my seatbelt as my car screams to a stop. I have never slid in my rx-7 when I needed to stop fast. Im sure the ABS would help on gravel or maybe uneven surfaces, but Ive never had a problem with my non-ABS braking sytem.