E28 ABS Troubleshooting

Since I've gotten my e28 the ABS has not worked. Light goes on with the ignition, turns off when
started and comes back on shortly after rolling away.

I have replaced both front sensors with genuine BMW units to no avail.
The rear pulse wheels are pretty shot so I have the rear sensors unplugged to take them out of the
equation. I plan on purchasing a new set of rings from http://www.reluctorrings.com/cars/bmw
shortly.
Anywho the front pulse wheels are in good shape and the sensors are brand spankin new. The
connectors on the body side have crumbled a bit but they make fine electrical contact.
My next suspicion was the ABS unit. I purchased one from a fellow member here and it purportedly
came off a car with working ABS.....and it still didn't solve the problem.

I know in my E30 as soon as you roll away it does a quick little self test once you start driving and you
can feel/hear the ABS pump. So the ABS pump was my next target.

First thing I did was test the relays. There was continuity between terminals 30 and 87a on the valve
relay and once 12v was applied to terminals 86 and 85 the relay clicked and terminal 30
disconnected from 87a and connected to 87. Valve relay checks out. Did the same test for the pump
relay and it checked out fine. Checked to see if power was getting to the relays. Power was getting
to terminals 86 and 30 for the pump relay. That's odd, it should be 86 and 87 according to the ETM. I
checked continuity between the abs harness plug prongs and the female relay socket connections.
For the pump relay 30 was continuous with 13, 87 with 10, and 86 with 11. According to the ETM it
should be 30 with 10 and 13 with 87. There is no continuity between 13 and 87 so I think this is just
labeling boo boo in the ETM. I checked a spare ABS pump and it was the same way. I jumped
terminals 87 and 30 with a short length of wire and the pump buzzed to life....so that works.
Back to the valves. Resistance of the valves was tested by probing connector 30 of the relay socket
and terminals 2, 4, 6, 8 of the ABS harness plug prongs, Each read 2 ohms. Valves were tested by
applying power to terminal 30 the of valve relay socket and selectively grounding terminals 2, 4, 6, 8
of the ABS harness plug prongs. All 4 clicked. Everything seems ok with the valves. The pump itself
seems fine.
I then continued to test continuity of the wiring between the pump and the ABS module
connector...all 8 wires checked out.
Next thing I checked was if the ABS module was getting power, pin 1 had 13.4V and pin 15 had 14V
(1.6V before starting car). Odd that there is a 0.6V discrepancy but they're getting power. Pin 25, the
brake input, gets 12.6V with the brake applied, none with no application. Checked continuity of pins
10, 20, 34 (grounding pins) with some metal part of the dash support. All three read 0 ohms
demonstrating a good ground for all. Other than some minor voltage discrepancies, the ABS module
plug seems to be getting all the correct grounds/power/signals etc.
So I unplugged the front driver's sensor so we're only playing with the front right sensor. Tested the
resistance between module connector and the connector for the front right abs sensor, 0.2 ohms for
both leads, pretty low. Tested the resistance of the sensor itself 19.9 kiloohms or 19900 ohms. I
couldn't find a spec for e28 sensors but I have heard e30 sensors are 1-2K ohms. I know that e30s
have different pulse wheels and such and is a different design however. So that curious. I should test
the other sensor as well.

I filled in the ETM with my findings and realized I missed to test a couple things (like continuity
between 86 and 12 for the motor relay) but it seems like everything is in working order and maybe I
have another bum ABS module. Anyone have any input?
Are you expecting the system to work without the rears connected? When you do that, the ABS will
take the whole ABS out of the equation.

I know the e30 system analyzes each input independently. You can troubleshoot the system by
unplugging all 4 then plugging one in, going for a quick spin to see if it light up, then unplug it and
plug in the next sensor. I'd assume the e28 system is the same. So yes I would expect the light to not
come on with only 1 sensor plugged in.

E28 system will be disabled with ANY sensor, or sensors, bad or disconnected.
Measure AC voltage at the sensors while you spin the wheels. Fronts should be similar to each other,
rears should be similar to each other. Fronts vs rears? I can't help with that.

Replaced the rear inner hubs, plugged everything in and it works! Old rings were hammered and
giving a poor/dirty signal.

It's interesting to see that the hub design has changed. The ABS wheel on the new one sticks out
whereas on the old one it was flush.
I know the e30 system analyzes each input independently. You can troubleshoot the system by
unplugging all 4 then plugging one in, going for a quick spin to see if it light up, then unplug it and
plug in the next sensor. I'd assume the e28 system is the same. So yes I would expect the light to not
come on with only 1 sensor plugged in.

The system is quite happy with all four speed sensors detached. When you reattach one of them
(with no other sensor attached) and a signal is returned then the system detects an imbalance and
triggers the light. If you attached one (with no other sensor attached ) and the light doesnt come on,
then you know that you have no signal being returned. This doesnt prove that the sensor is at fault,
rather that there is a break in the sensor line.

A better way to test these sensors/reluctor rings is at the detached ecm connector hook up a
multimeter reading AC volts and drive the car at say 20mph and check for peak volts for each sensor.
The one that is noticable higher/lower that the others is the problem area.

Heres an example taken from my own car

Like yours, both rear reluctor rings were at fault.

An oscilloscope reading shows the problem. This for the FL

I'm struggling with an ABS issue on Minerva. This thread seems helpful and I've decided to bump it
as I dive in deeper. Finding good resources with search has not been fruitful. Any additional links
would be appreciated.

To recap my situation: This is a Euro 85 chassis & harness, but all ABS components are from other US
cars. I rebuilt the ABS pump myself (it was never fully tested). The ABS computer is from a donor car
(never fully tested). All four sensors are brand new (and I've replaced both front ones with even
more brand new units). All hubs (ABS gear rings) are brand new.

When ABS light is off (see below) ABS works when hard-stopping at speed. All four brakes
bzzzt/pulse as expected.

For a while I was seeing two problems:

1) ABS light would either come on at start and stay on or come on after driving a bit and stay on.
2) When braking at slow speeds ABS engages (bzzzt/pulse) when it shouldn't.

After replacing both new front sensors (from Ivo) with newer front sensors (from Ivo) (because a test
had indicated one was bad) I can't get the ABS light to come on anymore. But problem #2 persists.

I'm about to dive in starting at the ABS computer, trying this suggestion from above:

A better way to test these sensors/reluctor rings is at the detached ecm connector hook up a
multimeter reading AC volts and drive the car at say 20mph and check for peak volts for each sensor.
The one that is noticable higher/lower that the others is the problem area.

I started with popping the ABS ECU and studying the ETM for pin-outs. I labeled the pins for the 4
sensors on the connector with a sharpie so I could quickly swap on the side of the road. Since my
multimeter does Hz, I decided to do measure using that.
A quick test drive (30mph) showed:

LF (pins 4 & 6) - ~650hz

I didn't expect it to be a rear sensor.

Verified sensor and gears looked tits.

I got ~1k ohms on all four sensors, including the LR. I pulled the LR sensor out and verified it got 1k
ohms on the bench. It did. I tried generating voltage by spinning the hub with it attached. Nothing.
(And I proved I could get a small voltage spike by doing the same on the RR).

I had another old, used, LR sensor in my pile so I popped it on and tested it. Worked great.

LF (pins 4 & 6) - ~650hz

A bunch of test driving later and I'm convinced ABS is finally working correctly.
So the diagnosis is done. A brand new (from Ivo) ABS sensor ohms out ok, but does not generate AC
voltage.

DO NOT ASSUME, JUST BECAUSE A SENSOR OHMS OUT OK, THAT IT WORKS.

https://www.r3vlimited.com/board/forum/ ... ost6384143

Just logged in here for the first time in a while and saw this. That's a cool way to check with the Hz
setting. A couple years after I made this thread the ABS was again acting wonky, that time one of the
rear senders ended up being the issue. I picked up a 4 channel Oscilloscope off of ebay and used it
for troubleshooting which was pretty cool. My peak heights and wave forms were not the same
between all sensors (which may have been due to my crappy old O scope) but the frequencies were
identical which is what you found.

Haven't driven my e28 since late 2018 when the G265 started making a loud whining sound. That
happened shortly after I bought my first house (and a big fixer upper at that) and am hoping to have
some time to pull it soon and see about splitting it and replacing whatever bearing has gone bad. I
really miss driving it (and also dislike DDing my nicer lower mileage vehicles, e28 has ~350k). House
is mostly done labor wise at the moment. I'm currently saving for new windows, carpet and kitchen
cabinets/appliances now. Current projects in the way are installing heat in the garage, do a cooling
system refresh on the F150 I bought last year, and take care of the couple tiny rust spots I found just
starting on my 325is while I had the driveshaft pulled for output shaft seal replacement and center
support replacement...