Long story.

So my brakes started getting squishy and I noticed a gash in the middle of my front right rotor. I took my car home, removed the wheel, brakes, etc and the little metal "clip" in the brake pad bracket was somehow rubbing on the rotor. Then I noticed the axle nut was loose. I could turn it by hand! A few hundred more miles and the nut would have been off. Bye bye car.

So I removed the knuckle and checked the hub for play - sure enough, it was very loose. I was lucky that I had an extra wheel bearing due to a previous misdiagnosis. I put the new bearing in, installed everything and went for a drive. Everything seemed to be fine at low speed, no noises. So I took it up to 60 mph and slammed the brakes hard, the right side locked up, the abs system made a bunch of whining noise and its light came on.

About 500 miles later, the light is still on and I have no abs on the front right brake now. I didn't physically damage the sensor when I removed it and it's seated properly. Anyone have an idea what the problem could be? Is there a way to reset the abs system? I unplugged the battery overnight and the abs light came on immediately.

Has anyone else had an axle nut loosen randomly? (Mine was torqued and retorqued to spec)

 

Wow, that's a good catch haha. Did you have the little knotch on the end of the nut that is supposed to help keep it from coming loose? Also, you're positive it's only one side that the ABS isn't working on?

 

Yeah, the knotch was lined up, I'll probably knotch it even more next time. The right side left a good 20 foot skid on the road.

Another weird thing is if I'm on a surface where the abs would normally work (gravel), it does (probably not the right side) and the light shuts off until I use the brakes on a normal surface. I'm thinking I fried the sensor when I unplugged it. The battery was not connected but I know certain systems can retain charge for ~30 minutes. 30 minutes I didn't want to wait for. :D

 

Hmm, that's interesting. Yeah, I would knotch the crap out of that thing haha. So, there's no fluid leaks or cut wires?

 

Nope, nothing is damaged. It has to be the sensor.

Anyone know if the abs system can be "reset?"

 

manual has a voltmeter check for the sensor....its a magnetic sensor....they go bad sometimes. A lot of people screw them up to, they forget that they are there when they pul the knuckel and end up pulling the wires on the sensor when removing the knuckel....it will kill them everytime.

 

Anyone know how I can check it with a voltmeter (what's the reading if it works)?

 

Maybe you should take it in to the dealer. Especially when something wrong with your car is life threatening ..

 

I figured the abs sensor out. It wasn't close enough to read the notches. (I'm using the washer trick to use my ep3 sensors on my rsx-s axles/5-lug.) ABS is working fine now.