Substitutes for ABS Wheel Sensor

XJ-S
1

Are there any known substitutes for front ABS Wheel Sensors. I believe my front right (passengers side) is dying, but I don’t want to spend $500 for a new one, and I don’t want to chance a used one…since they’ll be just as old as my dying sensor.

Do I have any options, even if I have to frankenstein something up?

Thanks.

2

Y’know, those wheel sensors are known to start working fine if you just clean the accumulated junk off of them.

3

There was someone about 6 months to a year ago that found that an ABS sensor from a similar vintage XJ6 (in a recycling yard) would work on a XJS, but had to be spliced to the XJS sensor coax. I think it was a rear sensor, but the same should apply to the front sensors. Saved a lot of money!!

As far as I know, the twisted pair sensor wiring can be spliced to the coax cable and work OK. I don’t know offhand if it is important which or the twisted pair wires should be connected to the center wire of the coax - or if it makes any difference as long as the pulse is there - it might be possible that the system wants to make sure the slope or the rise & fall of the pulse is matched for the 4 circuits. I do know that the OEM Teves IV system uses twisted pairs and there is a diagram that shows which color wire goes to a particular pin of the ABS ECU. When I did the conversion to Teves IV on my wife’s '92, with Teves III coax cable sensors, I was very careful about matching up the center of the center wire of the coax cable to the correct color wire going the correct pin in the multi pin plug going to the ABS ECU. The T4 system puts about a 1.5 volt bias on each of the four sensor circuits - which the T3 does not. I have had “0” problems with the Teves IV since I installed it just over a year ago, and it works great!.

4

Thanks. I believe it was an Audi sensor for the rears. There was some spacer that was needed, but since the sensors for the front and back are different, I didn’t think I could consider that?

5

I’ve cleaned them off many many times now. It seems to prolong the next error code, but not as long as it used to anymore.