LITTLE ROCK — DEAR TOM AND RAY:
In my infinite wisdom, I woke up early one Saturday morning and decided I would do something productive with my weekend. Even though I’ve never attempted any sort of car repair, I decided to change the front brake rotors on my 2006 Ford Ranger. I bought all the tools necessary for the job, cranked up the radio and got the front passenger brake rotor replaced in just under 16 hours. Niiiiice!
I took the car for a test drive, and the brakes did just fine, no issues. Then I moved on to the driver’s-side brake rotor, which took just about four hours, given all the experience I’d gained on the other side. But then I had a problem. I went for a test drive, and my ABS system started to activate when I slowed down to under 2 mph or so. I can feel the pumping in the pedal and hear a bit of a humming noise.
Well, that was about five months ago, and unfortunately, the problem hasn’t worked itself out yet. I did some research, cleaned the speed sensors on both sides and checked to see if the reluctor wheels were the same as the ones on the old rotors I’d removed. They are. I’m not sure where to go from here. How can I figure out what I screwed up?
- Peter
RAY: Just out of curiosity, we did a survey of 527 normal people, and asked them at what point they would have given up on this job. Even the outliers walked away after five hours, Peter. And you should have, too!
TOM:
Clearly, you’re a person who needs to be watched carefully. But you probably knew that already.
RAY:
There are two things you may have screwed up on your brakes. One is that you may have damaged the reluctor, or “chopper wheel.”
TOM:
The reluctor is a disc that spins along with the wheel. It has a series of notches on it, and the ABS wheel sensor uses those notches to determine how fast the wheel is turning. If you cracked the reluctor while replacing the rotors, for instance, it could be causing the wheel sensor to read the wheel speed incorrectly.
RAY:
But a more likely possibility is that you damaged an ABS sensor (there’s one on each wheel). You say you cleaned the sensors, but we’ve cleaned my brother, and it hasn’t made him function anybetter. Sometimes things just need to be replaced.
TOM:
What you need to do is try replacing the ABS sensor on the driver’s side. It’s an easy job, Peter. Twenty-five hours, max.
DEAR TOM AND RAY:
My wife has a 1994 Toyota Camry with a very loud exhaust. I figured there has to be a hole somewhere causing this. So when I got home today, I started her car and could tell that the noise was coming from the front. As soon as I looked underneath, I could see a hole. It is well before the manifold, in plain view, and is located on the pipe. But it’s not a rust hole or a crack; it looks like a hole that was intentionally put there. Then I immediately noticed, hanging right next to it, a small tube that looks like an exact fit for the hole. It is obvious that this tube is supposed to be connected to this pipe. What is it, and is it aneasy fix?
- Jeff
RAY: Boy, you’re really taxing the old brain cells by asking us to remember what the exhaust pipe on a ’94 Camry looks like. Are you sure you don’t want to quiz us on the Second Italo-Abyssinian War instead?
TOM: I think that hole was some kind of test port.
RAY: I think my brother’s right. A lot of cars from that era had a tube in the engine compartment that plugged right into the exhaust pipe, before the catalytic converter. It allowed the mechanic to stick a probe into the tube and analyze the pre-converter exhaust.
TOM: Then he could compare that reading with the exhaust coming out the tailpipe - on the other side of the converter - and see how well the converter was working.
RAY: But that tube has nowrusted off, and all you’re left with is the hole. And since you really don’t need the tube anymore, just have someone weld or braze the hole shut for you.
TOM:
Or you can go with my brother’s favorite exhaust repair product: frozen concentrated orange juice cans.
RAY:
Nah, they haven’t been the same since they switched over to cardboard. Too many fires! In any case, I wouldn’t spend a lot of money on repairing it, because chances are good you’re going to have to replace the whole exhaust system before long. If that connector has rusted off, chances are there’s a lot more rust where that came from, Jeff. Good luck.
Click & Clack (Tom and Ray Magliozzi) dispense advice about cars in Car Talk every Saturday. Email Click & Clack by visiting the Car Talk section of
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HomeStyle, Pages 39 on 09/25/2010