? about my brakes on my 02 Chrysler town and country with the 3.8 v6, brake pedal started going to the floor, replaced master, got great pressure, lasted a week, back to the floor again, bleed the second time, great pedal, lasted another weak, I used one of those hand held vac bleeders, ABS light was not on, until I tried the pull the fuse method.
Shut engine off, disconnected the negative cable, unplugged abs fuse to disable the abs, van wont start, plugged fuse back in, van starts, unplugged fuse, van wont start, put fuse back in again, starts right up.
Just trying to figure out how to disable the abs, PLEASE ADVISE thanx

 

ABS has nothing to do with the hydraulic brake system, they are not dependent on each other. Abs uses an electrical pump and wheel speed sensors to apply brake pressure through thw system to slow down a wheel that is about to skid. 99% of the time the ABS is never in use unless Ice rain gravel ect and you start sliding.
If you keep bleeding the lines that means there is a leak some where adding air into the system.

 

Thanks for the response, so I gather from what your implying is, there is no need to cycle any trapped air out the abs? This whole abs thing is a tad bit confusing to me, but I'm gonna take another stab at it tomorrow.

 

Agreed, you're giving yourself more pain playing with the ABS, go back to the basics, check the lines and reservoir, when you pump do you get bubbles in the reservoir?

Ignore ABS, if you've got an ABS light on now after fiddling just leave it and after a few miles it'll switch back off if the system is under normal operation again (It's a self-resetting fault unlike engine management, etc).

 

Not ral sure about the bubbles in the reservoir, kinda did a rush job actually, ran outta time kinda thing, guess I was hoping they would bleed right up, but much to my chagrin, they did, so I went with it. But I'm taking the MC back off today, its getting bench bleed, gonna put fresh pads front/rear, gonna give it another shot, will keep u posted,

 

ALWAYS bench bleed a replacement master cylinder! everyone one I have replaced(many,many) come with a bench bleeding kit and instructions to do so.

 

Well I got my pedal back, stuck another new MC on, bench bleed it, abs light went out as well, new pads on all 4s, no signs of leakage, hopefully it stays that way.

 

Great news, hopefully that's got it sorted then, thanks for posting back :-)

 

Good stuff there, well sorted.
Just for info - on my 2002 3.3 if I pulled the ABS fuse same result - won't start, but remove the relay - starts no problem! I did it as the abs pump had got REALLY wet (my wife with puddles and the kids!!) and was kicking in all the time - so no brakes, pretty scary.

 

Sorry - full detail - fuse in, relay out!