ABS light - Citroen ZX

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alaws
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Joined: 02 Feb 2003, 18:57
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ABS light - Citroen ZX

Post by alaws »

Advise please,
When I started my ZX earlier the ABS light stayed on - Indicating there was a fault.
Had a quick look under the arches to see if there were any obvious signs of damage ie broken wire. - Nothing
Reversed the car sightly, and turned the engine off, restarted it and the light extinguished.
I know the sensors pick up the castellations on the CV joint. Is it theoretically possible that all 4 sensors had the low points of the castellations under them, and hence didn't get a pickup?
Or
Are they so sensitive, that a metalic particle may have been under one, and by rotating the hubs to a different position it may have cleared the incorrect reading?
Following on from this, I know the distances between the sensor head and the castellations is quite critical. GSF do not sell shim packs for the sensors so does anybody know whether they are avaliable from citroen? (sold sperately from the sensor)
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AndersDK
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Post by AndersDK »

Andy -
The situations you mention is taken care of by the ECU - no ABS systems will indicate a fault on any possible position of the sensor castellations - that would make up long que'es of worried owners at the garages.
It's allmost certain you have a bad connection in one of the sensor's cabling - and that it will show again in near future.
Untill that happens - you can NOT find the problem. If you leave the car to the garage - the only thing they can (& probably will) do - is to replace all 4 sensors - a costly remedy.
alaws
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Post by alaws »

If it is a possible cable connection problem, am I right in assuming the following:
The ABS light will stay illuminated once a fault is detected, until the igition switch is turned off, and back on again (assuming the fault clears)
If this is the case it may be possible to 'waggle' the wiring connectors with the igition switched on to try and simulate the fault, and ascertain the faulty sensor?
Anders, out of curiosity, is english your first language, because if it isn't you're putting me to shame?
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AndersDK
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Post by AndersDK »

I guess it would be possible to recreate the fault condition as pr your description - but chances are that a missing connector might have scratched through any surface corrosion allready.
The best way to do the faultfinding is by measuring the ohmic resistance to the sensors - from the ECU main connector - while an assistent is fiddling with the sensor cable.
You should have some 1K ohm (steady) reading.
But usually the problem is found in the wheelarch anyway - so you may trace up any cable connectors here and do your testing.
As a former Danish Air Force technician (8 y's) - I had to learn technical english - on top of my highschool english. Later several training courses in Texas & London forced me to think in english language. And my profession is now IT & computers - which means a real bad influence from "Microsoft american-english".
Citroen interests has further learned me a lot - attending to a couple of Q&A boards - keeps my english alive - by reading the present everyday used english language written by natives [;)]
Such learning is impossible by books [:p]
For some reason - even as a neighbour country to Germany - the german language is out of the question. Guess I've been nagged too often by germans who did'nt understand me [:p][:p]
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