ok so the car is back on the road. but is dragging the left front brake! gets worse and worse more you drive it till that brake practically holds the car all by itself on a grade (velly smelly too). certainly the pad and especially the fluid is toast. the yellow ABS light is on solid. what now? manual not much help other than directing to the dealer. which I may have to do (looks around for lube).

I thought with an ABS fault the brain gets bypassed so normal brakes function. what gives. note: battery went dead 1x while in storage did that trigger something? cuz it drove normally before even with the abs light on. I'd just hard bypass the unit but don't know how nor have a flaring tool.

Sounds like a couple stuff. First, how are your brake lines? If they are old, try and change them out to see if it remedies the dragging.

As for the ABS, it may be as simple as the ABS relay, or something $$$ like the hydro pump.

thanks, SS lines were on the todo list. I knew there was a problem when putting the LF wheel back on and couldn't spin it freely. how odd only one corner would be exhibiting a problem.

the good news is I got the stock aux e-fan going, 30A fuse #41 was blown. I didn't have one so used a 15A and it's hanging in there so far. aux fan and Spal kicking in as normal, idiot needle stays at 12 o'clock even running A/C and dragging brakes all the way into town and back.

every idiot on the road wants to race a bmw. today's count is one jetta mad tailgater and one faded red supra small weiner mobile by Chinatown. by the time I got on 78 by the airport, ALL traffic stayed well way back behind me.

I think because the pad was smoking and the smell was just too great :p

Sounds like you have a frozen caliper. I'd take it off and see if you can work it back with a C clamp. If it is frozen, you can rebuild with a kit for $20-30. I think Turner sells a kit.

Did you bleed your brakes? Double check to see if the problem caliper has a nice flow of brake fluid when you crack the nipple. If not, leave it cracked open, put a towel or rag over the nipple and quickly stab at the brake pedal once or twice trying not to push down all the way (you don't want to do this!). Hopefully fluid will spurt out and that may help with the frozen caliper. If not, my thinking is throw the caliper away and just buy a new one. They usually aren't much $'s. To me, rebuilding isn't worth it.

Huh??
Renn??
"aren't much$'s"

That's the frist time I've heard you say that! But I guess saving $2.00 on a rental car is more joyful. :lol

Hey AHSHOLE! That was $9 we saved!

ahhh, frozen caliper may be the culprit? I didn't touch the brakes yet. the car will be going back on stands this week. I did get an oil filter though! maybe go get some russel speed bleeders too?

You definately have either a frozen caliper or possibly someone vise gripped your rubber brake hose (with the brake pedal mashed) going to the caliper. Probably the frozen caliper :)

The abs is most likely a completely separate issue or it might sense that there is an issue with that caliper/wheel/fluid pressure or something, but I'm not up on my ABS knowledge so dont quote me on that:D

:confused you seem to be a little behind in a lot of areas of knowledge rev....:confused

:confused you seem to be a little behind in a lot of areas of knowledge rev....:confused
Those sound like fighting words! :eek: Doesn't Bryan outrank you?

You definately have either a frozen caliper or possibly someone vise gripped your rubber brake hose (with the brake pedal mashed) going to the caliper. Probably the frozen caliper :)

The abs is most likely a completely separate issue or it might sense that there is an issue with that caliper/wheel/fluid pressure or something, but I'm not up on my ABS knowledge so dont quote me on that:D

yeah weird right, the car sat with the suspension in full droop, no wheels, for months. maybe the line deteriorated inside or something causing a block. or the caliper pins rusted in place. this isn't the best place to store cars at all unless hermetically sealed in a big baggie. :p

CANT...GET...FARGING...CALIPER...BOLTS...OFFFFFFFF F!!!

shot them down with Aerokroil (thanks Ninja7) and will let sit. busting out da beeg hamma' tamorrah :D rotor just slightly blued, certainly worn past spec, still locked up. all fegging new brakes in order. cha ching and counting.

do they make chrome rotors? :)

Breaker bar?

I'm with Beastie, did you try a breaker bar that's at least 20" long?
You may have done it already but turning your steering wheel completely to one side allows better access to the caliper bolts (assuming you're working on the fronts).
By the way, when working with bolts that are on very tight, if at all possible, use six sided sockets and not 12 sided ones. very easy to either crack the socket or strip the head of the bolt.

use some HEAT!!! FTW... propane torch it, like I did with the rotor retainer screws

use some HEAT!!! FTW... propane torch it, like I did with the rotor retainer screws

And who's idea was that, thats right, mine. :redspot

Also Bimbum, I just thought of something else, even when you get the caliper bolts off you are going to have an even tougher time trying to get a seized (in the clamped position )caliper off therotor. Dont mean to pee in your cherios, but good luck You may just want to pull the rotor and all with one shot and make a boat anchor out of them:D

Even if its frozen a pry bar should brake them loose:buttrock

are you just trying to get off the little allen bolts that have to be removed to get the pads out, or the big ass bolts holding on the caliper?
I started to try and break loose those big bolts on Donovan's E36 M3, and no go, but then I noticed it wasn't necessary, when those little allen bolts hidden with plugs pop out real easy and allows you to get the pads out, and compress the piston and such as necessary. That should be enough to tell you if the caliper is frozen.....The slider pins come out with the allen bolts. If they don't come out real easy, then thats your problem! Clean em off with brake cleaner and grease them up.
or maybe i'm way off, i dunno.

Also, not sure if this works on bimmers.... but on some of my friends trucks before.... we had problems with the ABS system.... and to fix it, we just pulled the ABS fuse. No more problems, and they locked right up. :devillook
maybe not what you wanna do permanently, but fun diagnostic.

Rev: hmmm, yank the whole mess off at once sounds the ticket as the pads ain't moving from locked on. heck, the car wouldn't roll in neutral and look how heavy it is. I will try the crack the bleeder trick first just out of curiousity. Kev, the manual has a caveat about not lubing anything.

3 months 17 days later and I'm finally done with the project :p
who wants a pair of M3 front brakes, pads, lines, everything. LF still seized to the rotor though it spins.

now back to the ABS light troubleshooting?

Could be the ABS relay or the hydro unit. Pray it's not the hydro unit.

it's certainly not the battery :p got a new red top at costco. I'll pull the relay and test, dunno' about the hydro unit though.

I think the relay is the pink one. You'll need to put a working relay in it's place to see if that is the problem. If it's the hydro unit, it's big buck$. Get Desmo to help you with the soldering of the hydro unit and it should be good to go.

ah good info, thanks. I was just going to pull the relay to manually power it and see what happens.

soldering? Desmo you out there I need help :/
(Lord stop me from buying that bike too if he still got it. must.. resist... these... urges)

what really took so long, I had my car painted black.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b354/empireFH/bmw/IMG_0001.jpg



















not. :p

You bought a Caliber?

i swear bfc members are the master of the NON obvious... you post a picture of something on here, and everyone notices EVERYTHING but the main purpose of the picture... lol

hahaha

beastie that's christine's car to haul all her modelling shit around.








http://www.asian-sirens.com/blog/images/uploads/C.Mendoza_02.jpg


not, lol :p yeah got a mommie wagon w/o the mommie when my truck died. not a bad deal.

Bad ass rims you got there.

haha... nice... i do like them alot, but 19's are rough on an e36 especially with road conditions out here in hawaii

nah, don't fear the 19s, so far so good :) it's my suspension that sucks donkey balls.

My DSC light went on, it was as simple as disconnecting the battery for 15 minutes, the light went off.
Try that for the light!

It sounds like your issues are worse though.

Just try it, its the cheapest remedy for your ABS light!



Easy,
Shane
TFO:redspot

thanks, already tried that (inadvertantly when the battery went flat). hmm, although the old battery had 1.5v and it didn't take 15 minutes to change it cables off...

aigoo cham nah!! :mad
on european-forums.com i had a whole DIY on this with pics & wiring diagrams and such, but that site seems to have died! :mad

(edit)
ah ok i found it on another site:
http://www.bimmerwerkz.com/forum/maintenance-troubleshooting/24099-diy-abs-hydraulic-unit-repair.html

wow, just wow. thank you, am printing out the pages! I will give this a go. the teves link comes up 404 now.

lol maybe too many peeps were downloading the manual. i'll check at home to see if i still have a copy of teves.

btw here's a labeled pic of the pins. i forgot to include this in the diy.

TY. what size hose clamps do I need to get? I do have a dremel w/extension but not the collet / adapter small parts. the good news is the car is running (and stopping ;P ) nicely otherwise.

Offhand I don't remember the exact clamp size but probably no bigger than 3/4" or 1", the hose isn't very big.

Couldn't find my copy of the Teves mk IV manual. But basically all the info you really need from it are the resistances in the table in the DIY.

I tried googling the manual but nothing. But I did come across a similar DIY, but this guy read the resistances at the 55-pin connector at the computer, not at the pump:
http://www.geocities.com/e36rulz/ABSRepairDescription.html
In his DIY he also references Matt325 from bf.c, who also happens to be the guy I learned this procedure from by reading his writeup.
Matt325's post:
http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=125355