Manche757 Posted February 18, 2019 Share Posted February 18, 2019 A thread I read on a Cherokee site discussed adding ABS to XJs. Cost was about $850-$900 in parts but there were comments about needing a new axle. The country solution in the '60s was to haul a half load of sand in the back of a pickup truck for the winter to stabilize the rear end. Anyone here added ABS to an MJ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete M Posted February 18, 2019 Share Posted February 18, 2019 snow tires will change your life. IMO they are better than any ABS or even 4wd. most ABS systems suuuuuck (especially the older ones). One of my wheel sensor wires in the Liberty went out and disabled my ABS and traction control (plus my cruise ) and I have been infinitely happier for it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeep Driver Posted February 18, 2019 Share Posted February 18, 2019 Learn to drive. Serous about that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Minuit Posted February 19, 2019 Share Posted February 19, 2019 The factory system that was offered on XJs about this time was an absolute disaster. No MJ ever left the factory with ABS, and as a result absolutely none of the wiring or infrastructure the system would require is present on the MJ. Anything you add will require a lot of custom work. I'm usually an "answer the damn question" kind of guy, but you'd be blazing your own trail doing this. I'm not aware of anybody adding ABS to an MJ before. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMO413 Posted February 19, 2019 Share Posted February 19, 2019 5 hours ago, Pete M said: snow tires will change your life. IMO they are better than any ABS or even 4wd. most ABS systems suuuuuck (especially the older ones). One of my wheel sensor wires in the Liberty went out and disabled my ABS and traction control (plus my cruise ) and I have been infinitely happier for it. Agreed snow tires are awesome. You know you can just pull the fuse for the ABS pump to disable it. Then you could put in a speed sensor and have cruise again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete M Posted February 19, 2019 Share Posted February 19, 2019 I wish. the bad wire is under the carpet towards the back of the Jeep. I'll get to it once I'm able to take her offline for a suspension overhaul. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gogmorgo Posted February 19, 2019 Share Posted February 19, 2019 Modern winter tires. There's even a handful of all-terrains out there with the snow-peak rating if you only want to run one tire year-round. I don't think I've triggered my ABS once since installing the Grabber ATX's. As far as abs goes, funnily enough one of the best systems I've used is the one in my ZJ. 26 years and 180,000 miles after leaving the factory it's totally functional. The advantage of that would be the availability of junkyard components. Probably still some new or aftermarket availability there as well, given it was standard on the ZJ. Just an idea. I remember someone in another Jeep club was really struggling to find parts to get his going again on his OBD1 XJ. I don't know how common ABS was on 97+ XJs. You need not only the pump, but I suspect master and booster that are compatible, the control module, and wheel speed sensors. Early systems frequently would have only three speed sensors, one for each from wheel and one on the rear diff. The sensors also need tone rings to read off. One of my MJs currently has shafts with tone rings installed, so that wouldn't be a huge deal, although I don't know where the sensors would mount... somewhere near the hub. ZJ knuckles might solve that if they're compatible, not too sure as its a low opinion axle. I don't really know how you'd do the rear though. I really don't know what's going on there, but MJs, XJs and ZJs have overlapping axle options so something could probably be figured out easily enough. You'll also probably need to run all new brake lines, and you'd lose your distribution and proportioning blocks, because ABS takes over those functions. Except I'm not at all convinced it's worth it. With just older cheap winters on my 2wd MJ, I'm not really having problems stopping, and I don't think there's a lick of bare pavement anywhere in town. But mostly, I've had perfectly functional ABS nearly kill me. I definitely would not want to try to cobble my own together. My situation involved gravel, admittedly a bit much speed, a small cliff, and a blown out rear brake line on my 2001 Jimmy. I hit the brakes, locked them up, and then they released entirely. What happened was the ABS unlocked the front wheels, and sent full pressure to the rear wheels, except having blown out the rear brake line, it just dumped fluid on the ground. Suddenly no brakes at all as I'm understeering towards a drop that would not have left the Jimmy on its wheels. Without ABS doing its thing I still had the front brakes. Not ideal, but it still worked. With ABS doing its thing, intermittently I had no brakes at all. Yeah, with proper maintenance that shouldn't be a problem, but you never know. Not dying is nice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete M Posted February 19, 2019 Share Posted February 19, 2019 the ABS in our old neon tried to kill me on multiple occasions. one tire (back left) liked to lock up in the bit o' gravel that collected in turnarounds and so when coming to a stop the whole thing would kick on and roll me into the cross street. there are definitely various levels of "smartness" when it comes to abs and that one was pretty dumb. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dasbulliwagen Posted February 19, 2019 Share Posted February 19, 2019 Did the late model XJ's come with the more modern style ABS? I could see that if you did a complete 1997-up swap, including interior, axles, etc, if it had an ABS system, that might be one way to get ABS in your MJ. The earler Bendix ABS system, as said, was a nightmare. There is a lifetime warranty on many of those systems that keep turning up at the dealerships. I havent done one in 6-7 years now, so I'm hoping they are all gone from my area now, or at least all converted to regular style booster by now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMO413 Posted February 20, 2019 Share Posted February 20, 2019 6 hours ago, dasbulliwagen said: Did the late model XJ's come with the more modern style ABS? I could see that if you did a complete 1997-up swap, including interior, axles, etc, if it had an ABS system, that might be one way to get ABS in your MJ. The earler Bendix ABS system, as said, was a nightmare. There is a lifetime warranty on many of those systems that keep turning up at the dealerships. I havent done one in 6-7 years now, so I'm hoping they are all gone from my area now, or at least all converted to regular style booster by now. The Bendix ABS was and always will be horrible. Parts for then are even worse! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eagle Posted February 21, 2019 Share Posted February 21, 2019 I special ordered both my 2000 XJ Sport and my late wife's 2000 XJ Classic. I ordered both without ABS. My recollection is that, even in 2000, ABS came only with a Dana 35 rear axle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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