Retrofit of ABS

[jamescarruthers]

Hi, this may be too much work, but I wondered if anyone had intimate knowledge of the ABS system on our cars. Basically I had to do two emergency-ish stops in the wet in one day and was very unimpressed by the car locking up and just barreling forwards (and the people who seemed to be suicidal in Cambridge that day!)!

So does anyonoe have any idea if I can just get the sensors and the computer from a scrap 480 and install the ABS straight on my car or is there some unsurmountable crazyness involving new pipes, hubs and wiring?

Most intregued to see if anyone has considered this or done this before.

P.S. I know your supposed to do the brake on, brake off thing, simulating ABS, when it locks up, but basically I just forgot I didn't have ABS in the '87 car!!!

[glasgowjim]

you need 4 sensors
abs pump
abs controller
brake pipes need to be redone abs pump should be positioned (standing at front of car) behind and below he air (filter) box abs mk1 controller in rear cubby ns

dnt know about hubs but probably need new ones

should you decide to go ahead wih the addition then i can provide the abs pump and controller for £50.
suggest the hardest bit is the wiring but i have a sneaky feeling the looms were the same.

good luck

ps
even doing all work yourself you are looking at 2 to 300 pounds

might be better off buying an abs car and swopping over bits then selling non abs car far cheaper in long run unless you buy a lemon

[jamescarruthers]

thanks mate. no chance of selling the car, think i'll just live with it! when i next get to a scrappy i'll have a little compare and contrast.

i take it the pipes can't be just swapped as they go through bulkheads and get flared afterwards, so i couldn't just swap easily from one car to another?

thanks again

[glasgowjim]

wouldnt know about the pipes suspect srongly you would want new ones somehow

[martinholmesuk]

new ones are a must!

[jpthevolvoman]

Afternoon James

Me again - did you ever look into this further? I’m wondering whether it’s worthwhile doing having never driven a non abs car before. Seems like a simple-ish plug and play to me bar rerouting the brake lines.

No worries if you can’t remember it was 12 years ago!!

Thanks

JP

Hi, this may be too much work, but I wondered if anyone had intimate knowledge of the ABS system on our cars. Basically I had to do two emergency-ish stops in the wet in one day and was very unimpressed by the car locking up and just barreling forwards (and the people who seemed to be suicidal in Cambridge that day!)!

So does anyonoe have any idea if I can just get the sensors and the computer from a scrap 480 and install the ABS straight on my car or is there some unsurmountable crazyness involving new pipes, hubs and wiring?

Most intregued to see if anyone has considered this or done this before.

P.S. I know your supposed to do the brake on, brake off thing, simulating ABS, when it locks up, but basically I just forgot I didn't have ABS in the '87 car!!!

[jamescarruthers]

Hey JP, no I never went any further with this. I have however made sure all my subsequent 480s have very good tyres to give it the best chance in the wet!

Also, the tyres on that car at the time were appaling and I believe I wrote the post early in my ownership of it before fully realising that! I wrote about sliding rather ungracefully to a halt but actually after that I remember it spun round on a roundabout in the wet with absolutely no provocation from me. I binned the tyres the next week and it was a sure footed as a 480 should be (i.e. very!).

[Jay-Kay-Em]

It's an interesting question JP; but the breakers yard landscape has changed since James asked that valid question.

Even if you found a donor 400 series vehicle, you are fitting obsolete parts. When parts fail, which inevitably they do, you need that continued parts supply to maintain your installation.

Second hand 400 series wheel speed sensors are impossible to remove - I found out the hard way - and it was my motivating factor to actually remove ABS.

Edie has recently struggled to keep her early ABS going.

Not to poo-poo your idea - on the contrary, projects like this are hugely interesting. Anything is possible with time, money and the skill to do so. I bet you out of the 1000 wheel speed sensor designs out there, there is one off another car that would work as a substitute in our hubs - but you have to invest the time to find that sensor and perhaps buy a handful and test. That's the 'time' bit I talked about!

You could remove a 'standalone' ABS system from another generic car like a Corsa-B which might have slightly better parts support. But again, these cars are getting old. You are between a rock and a hard place because if you pick anything newer, the ABS module will be intrinsic to the CAN-BUS and won't communicate without a network. They also diagnose via OBD which is a struggle for a retro fit scenario. That, and more modern ABS systems have additional sensors for yaw, brake line pressure etc.

Bosch do do a retro-fit ABS kit for motorsport :

https://www.bosch-motorsport.com/media/ ... m4_kit.pdf

Last time I checked it was £5000

Cadence braking is where it's at... cheaper