Thank you all for having me on your site. I have a 94 Accord EX 2.2 liter. The abs light is on. I just bought the car and the rear brakes did not work. Fronts are good. I did a four wheel brake job thinking that would fix the problem. I retracted the pistons and bled all four calipers. Still have no rear brakes. Someone told me to clean the abs sensors. That it would fix the problem...I'm not sure he is right or how to clean the sensors.....Any help would be great!

 

Sounds like you should get the ABS light diagnosed.

 

Ok? Sound like a plan. But I'm trying to do this on my own. With the help of a few friendss. Like the folks on this site.....does anyone else have any ideas on this?

Thanx
Matt

 

do a ABS system flush

 

Ok I will if you tell me how?

Thanx
Matt

 

Can anyone tell me how to do an ABS system flush?

 

The ABS light tells you there is a problem, but you have to figure out what the problem is. To do this, there is a blue 2-pin connector just underneath the glove box...pull the connector out of it's holder, jump the plug with a paper clip, then turn the key to ON. The ABS light should come on for a few seconds, then turn off...then you'll get a series of blinking lights that tell you exactly what the problem is. You just have to count the number of blinks (each code is a set of two numbers...for example, it might blink 4 times, then pause 1 second, then blink 8 times....this would be error code 4-8, corresponding to the left rear wheel sensor. There can be up to 3 different codes saved in the memory).

Once you have the code, you can figure out what the problem is and go from there.

 

Also, dirty or even broken sensors wouldn't cause your rear brakes to stop working all together. It would simply shut of the ABS system and turn on the ABS light, but leave your brakes working just fine. So if your rear brakes aren't working at all, even after changing the pads and bleeding the calipers, it sounds like you have a bigger problem than just a bad/dirty ABS sensor.

 

To OP: Exactly how do you know you don't have rear brakes?

 

The rear brake rotors have some signs of use. BUT thay have more rust on them then shine. The car also dives into the nose toward the pavement when you have to step on the brakes. Those are the symtems. Oh one other thing! The pedal will go to the floor on occasion for not reason. Let me know what you folks think.

TY
Matt

 

Sounds like you have a problem with the master cylinder ( pedal going to the floor ) assuming you don't have any leaks.

The issue with the rear brakes, does the parking brake hold the vehicle?

 

No leaks....pedal goes to the floor very seldom. Yes the e-brake works fine.

 

when you changed the rear brakes, did you check the pins in the caliper brackets to make sure they weren't frozen in place? The pin should be well lubricated and slide in/out pretty easily. If the pin boot is broken (or sometimes even if it's not), water can get in and you end up with a rusty, frozen pin.

If the pin is frozen, when you apply the brakes the caliper won't be able to slide and as a result you get little/no wear on the outer side of the rotor. This will also be evident when you change the brake pads/rotors - the inner pad will be worn significantly more than the outer pad, and the back of the rotor will be much shinier/smoother than the outer side of the rotor.

Front brakes require you to remove the pins in order to change the pads, so you'd notice right away if things were rusty/frozen. This is easy to overlook on the back brakes if you're doing pads only, since you don't actually have to remove the pins unless you're changing the rotors.

 

ok here is the deal....I did the code search it came up 4-8. what should I do now? Change the left rear sensor? Why would the right side not be working if the only code was for the leftside. Any help would be great.

Thanx
Matt

 

the ABS system malfunctioning will not cause your brakes to not work. only the ABS system to not work. this just means that you can lock up your brakes and slide. if the rear brakes are not working i recomend putting the ABS issue on hold and figuring out what is wrong with the primary brake system for now. first off i would check those pins in the caliper brakets that chofmann79 was talking about.

i assume that you didnt have problems when bleeding the rear brakes? (for example brake fluid not coming out of them)

 

yes fluid was coming out of both calipers. I will take off the rear calipers tomorrow (day off) and clean and grease the pins. Thank You all and I will let you know how it goes.

 

regarding the ABS code (4-8), you can do a quick check of the sensor to see if it's good or bad. You will need a multimeter in order to measure resistance...just unplug the sensor and measure the resistance between the plug's two pins. If it's in the 600-900 ohm range, the sensor is working and your problem lies somewhere else. If the resistance if out of that range (for me, the resistance was much higher, around 1 megaohm) then your sensor is bad and needs to be replaced. It's quick and easy to replace on your own..5 or 10 minutes.

The plug for the sensor is located on the underside of the car, in the middle, right between the two rear wheels. If you look at the left rear wheel from underneath, you'll see the sensor itself, with a single wire coming from the bottom. Just follow this wire, and at the other end you'll see the plug (the plug is orange, but mine was black with dirt/gunk). As far as I can remember, the left/right ABS plugs are the only plugs on the underside of the car back there, so you can't really confuse them with anything else. Just unplug it and measure the resistance...this will be especially easy if you've already got the back end jacked up to inspect the caliper brackets.