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ABS sensors missing


wayneg

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Before I rant on please let me introduce myself to the forum. I am a long standing owner of Land / Range rovers in the UK and am now living in Western Australia. Having sold my beloved "mint" 93 Vouge SE before emigrating I have recently purchased an Identical late `93 over here to get out and about to the nicer spots. My latest charge has had a hard life and appears to have had loads of work done which I am trying to get to grips with, this is where I need help. Like most I am working to a tight budget and have more time than money to fix things. The major things I am trying to get to grips with are the ABS and fuel/ ECU issues.

The air suspension has been removed and the car now sits very nicely on springs and shocks, nice heavy duty units. Problem is the front axle appears to be from an earlier car and does not have the ABS sensors, the rear axle does. This is obviously causing the ABS warning light in the dash to go potty. I have checked all braking systems are ok and to all effect the car stops perfectly. Does anyone know of a way to get the ABS/ Traction control working on the back if the front sensors are not there?

The exhaust has also been changed, I have a twin down pipe from either side ( looks like an early system) which goes into a single pipe to the back with only the original back box, the cats and silencer are gone. The sound is awesome for 5 minutes then it becomes boring. I have been advised the car is running very rich and put this down to no Cats and Lamda sensors. I have done a bit of searching and found a tune resistor can be changed to an earlier non cat green one. Where can I find this on my car?

Finally I have only one remote and want to get a spare. I purchased a "learning" remote from e-bay but cannot get it to learn.

What are my options here? I am sure I can get one from the Stealership but am looking for a cheap option

Over here there is no yearly MOT and believe it or not this car has in the past 3 weeks had Two government inspection ( like a watered down MOT ) as it was not registered and passed both times. They did however pick up on a sluggish rear elec window.

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Does anyone know of a way to get the ABS/ Traction control working on the back if the front sensors are not there?

The ABS is fully independent at each wheel (what these days gets called Electronic Brake Distribution to differentiate it from cheap and nasty ABS systems), so it probably wouldn't be a good idea to bodge it even if it's possible (which I don't think it is - only way I can think of would be to feed the signal from the rear ABS sensors to the front channels, but it would then operate the front ABS when a rear wheel was spinning... :ph34r: ).

Has the axle been changed, or has it just had swivel pins without the socket for the ABS sensor fitted? If the sensor ring is still there inside the swivel then it could be a fairly simple job to get it working again.

I have been advised the car is running very rich and put this down to no Cats and Lamda sensors. I have done a bit of searching and found a tune resistor can be changed to an earlier non cat green one. Where can I find this on my car?

It's under the drivers seat somewhere on a UK car - probably still the right hand seat for Aus, but whichever one your ECU is under. Removal of the lambda sensors without changing the tune resistor would force the ECU into limp home mode, which is very rich. I'd guess your fuel consumption is terrible too?

If you can get hold of a couple of lambda sensors for sensible money then getting a couple of nuts welded onto the downpipes and refitting them would be a better solution than changing the tune resistor. Of course, this assumes that all the hotwire kit is in good order...

Finally I have only one remote and want to get a spare. I purchased a "learning" remote from e-bay but cannot get it to learn.

What are my options here? I am sure I can get one from the Stealership but am looking for a cheap option

You can 'train' fobs from other cars to the alarm, I think - pretty certain someone posted instructions on here a while back, so take a look in the tech archive and if it's not in there try the search. You can pick second hand fobs up off ebay (they are are prone to dry solder joints, so if you get one that appears to be dud, don't just chuck it in the pin - try reflowing the joints first).

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Thanks for the info, will keep me busy at the weekend doing more investigating. Am i right in my understanding of your answer to my abs/ traction question that it will still work on the rear? I have now taken the warning bulbs out of the dash and am thinking I will leave well alone.

I must admit I was not to alarmed by the fuel consumption but thought the running / tickover was a bit lumpy. I Have just got the car back having had a LPG conversion and its running a lot smoother on gas. It will make you all sick to hear it cost me A$350, about £140 due to a government grant of A$3000. Only setback is the tanks are not allowed along the sides so had to get a flat tank in the rear loadspace. LPG is about 25p a litre!

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Thanks for the info, will keep me busy at the weekend doing more investigating. Am i right in my understanding of your answer to my abs/ traction question that it will still work on the rear? I have now taken the warning bulbs out of the dash and am thinking I will leave well alone.

Nope, it's all or nothing - unless you sort out the front you won't have any ABS or TC.

Are you sure you have TC? It was an optional extra, there's an extra valve block under the bonnet if you have it. Only operates on the back axle but it's surprisingly effective.

I must admit I was not to alarmed by the fuel consumption but thought the running / tickover was a bit lumpy. I Have just got the car back having had a LPG conversion and its running a lot smoother on gas. It will make you all sick to hear it cost me A$350, about £140 due to a government grant of A$3000. Only setback is the tanks are not allowed along the sides so had to get a flat tank in the rear loadspace. LPG is about 25p a litre!

LPG is pushing twice that here :( Which still makes it a bargain compared to any of the alternatives...

The fact that it runs happily on LPG strongly suggests that it isn't fuelling correctly on petrol - although bear in mind that if you have standard dizzy ignition they'll have set the timing as a compromise between petrol and LPG, which means it will be too advanced on petrol and will tend to have a lumpy idle anyway.

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OK, I know its embarrassing but the sensors were there all along, having read the reply referring to swivel sensor ring ring I realised I was looking on the axle body ( due to a diagram I had seen on another forum) when I should have been looking at the hub top, Anyway after this eureka moment I have followed all the cables to make sure everything was OK and the sensors were seated correctly. Coming to the main Valve block I then found the main electrical connector was unplugged and had been all along. After a 20min struggle and removing the ABS pump to get access the plug was back on. A quick test drive and still the warning lights are on although now in a more orderly fashion.

Ign on , both ABS and Traction control light come on

5 seconds and both go off then ABS comes back on.

Drive vehicle over 5mph and ABS light does not go out plus Traction Control light comes back on.

I have run the diagnostic sequence and still get the same code as before of 2.3 , this I have been told is not a valid code. I checked several times and cannot get anything different, always 2.3

I have tested the brakes very aggressively and they are working fine, I cannot get the car to skid so believe the abs is working. The 1st time after reconnecting the valve block plug when moving off there was a judder as though the ABS or traction control is suddenly working on its own, I felt it to be coming from the valve block, after this quick burst of activity all went to normal but with the warning lights still on.

Anyone got any ideas how i can progress to diagnose the problem? I would like to confirm the valve block is ok, is there a test procedure.

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Yep - have a search in the tech archive. There's a link to the ABS diagnostic procedures - the system your truck has can be interrogated with a bit of wire (it flashes it's error codes with the ABS light). You can also clear the errors this way.

Given that the connector has probably caused all sorts of errors to be recorded, don't bother reading them all to start with - clear all the errors down and then see what, if anything, reappear when you drive it. If there are any other faults, you should then get a clear indication of where they are.

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The link to ABS diagnostics in the Tech achieve is unfortunately dead. I do have info from another source which I used to get the error code as described before 2.3. I do not know how to clear the codes though so if anyone could advise that would help. This code 2.3 will keep on repeating as long as i leave the test mode on making me think this is the only code stored. I also am still not able to identify the tune resister under the drivers seat, anyone got a photo so I can see what I am looking for?

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The link to ABS diagnostics in the Tech achieve is unfortunately dead. I do have info from another source which I used to get the error code as described before 2.3. I do not know how to clear the codes though so if anyone could advise that would help. This code 2.3 will keep on repeating as long as i leave the test mode on making me think this is the only code stored. I also am still not able to identify the tune resister under the drivers seat, anyone got a photo so I can see what I am looking for?

Rats! Sorry, I could have sworn I fixed that - it's on my own webspace and had to move when I changed my hosting provider. Can't find the tech article - do you have a link to it so I can sort it out?

The file it should link to is now here:

RangeRoverABSDiagnosis.pdf

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If its any use I'm braking a RRC LSE and 95% ABS gear is still fitted (one front sensor has gone) if its any use I can post as I'm always sending stuff to Read90 (my big brother) in Brisbane so it easy enough to send stuff to WA

PM me if your interested.

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