I've been unfortunate enough to actually use my brakes to the point where I felt the ABS working. Is the pulsation in the pedal supposed to be so violent and noisy.

For all that noise and commotion you'd think it should stop on a dime........yeah right ! The brakes hardly felt like they were even working.

Is the ABS controlled by the computer? Would an aftermarket chip smooth out those nasty pulsations or reduce my stopping distance? The way I felt things working can't be right, even if that's the way Ford intended it to be.

Thanx in advance.

 

sounds like normal operation on the abs system

 

Under what conditions (speed, load, road surface, weather) did you experience that throbbing?

Do you have front-wheel ABS too?

 

Thanx for asking Y2K, I have 4 wheel ABS and I have experienced it the worst while driving at highway speeds in dry conditions and in a panic stop situation. I had the brakes to the floor and heard a lot of noise and felt the pulsations in the pedal but not a lot of stopping going on.

I realize that it's just a pickup truck but I personally think that the brakes are anemic at best. I'm curious to know if changing the computer chip would help to stop in shorter distance or at least smoooth out the pulses.

 

If you were in full pedal brake application and heard/felt the motor pulsing your brakes, you were probably stopping as fast as the truck would stop.

Ideally, your ABS tries to make your wheels turn somewhere around 75% of your vehicle speed -- which is 'optimal' for braking/lateral (sideways -- actually, NOT going sideways) stability.

It is common to equate the lack of noise with a lack of braking -- but/yet when locked, a tire has less friction than one that is turning at 75% of vehicle speed.

You could, of course, be feeling the pulsations on only one axle -- and the other one's brakes might truly be unable to lock (faded or just plain out of adjustment -- or ineffective).

Lastly -- if your truck was empty -- the weight transfer is so great that your rear tires don't have any weight on them -- and the tires would lock ever-so-easily -- so the ABS releases them proportionately to their tire-slip-grip ability -- with the result being that you've really only got the front axle's brakes to stop quite a lot of truck.

Helpful?

 

Yes very helpful thank you. You also made a good point about the brake's adjustment. Never really did check those rear drums and I do'nt do the brake jab in reverse. Could'nt hurt to take a look I guess.