ABS light after new brakes

[Pilot Laslo]

Hello,
I had to replace a stripped lug bolt so i removed the front left rotor, I cleanned the ABS ring and reninstalled the rotor.
Next I replaced the brake shoes in the rear and the left rear axle
My abs light has came on, drives perfect no issues braking.
Any idea what could be wrong?
Thanks

 

[Shadowrider6661]

I think that you need to reset the OBD code, not positive though. I know my code reader can reset the ABS.

 

[Dirtman]

It's possible you damaged a tooth on the tone ring while cleaning it, or knocked the sensor/wiring out of whack.

 

[ratdude747]

Is the light immediate, or only after driving?

If immediate, you probably split a wire in the sensor harness... Need to splice it or replace the sensor. Beware that the cables are high flex and getting a splice to hold up in such is tricky. I crimped a pair of Molex connectors in the middle of mine and covered it in liquid tape to fix this (broke during radius arm replacement), but after a year and a half I have had it fail intermittently recently in the cold. My outer cable jacket was all dry rotted and splitting... so the better fix would have been to pony up and replace the sensor. I had the crimps sitting and figured I had nothing to loose

 

[Orca]

Any idea what could be wrong?

I doubt if anything you did to the rear brakes/axle is causing your ABS dash light. Not impossible, but not likely, IMHO.

BTW, on the front wheel, how do you "clean the ABS ring" just by removing the rotor? Isn't the tone ring embedded in the front wheel hub on a 2002?

My suspicion, depending on what exactly you mean by "cleaned the ABS ring" on the front left wheel, is that you somehow caused the WSS (Wheel Speed Sensor) to be interfered with or otherwise damaged its hardware/wiring, causing the ABS to disable itself and light the dash light (which is why you have "no issues braking" -- you probably have no ABS either).

There's really no need to guess, though. If you have a Bluetooth-capable Android smartphone or tablet, all you need is the free demo version of FORScan and a cheap scantool like the popular "BAFX Products" Bluetooth scantool ($21 on Amazon currently). You'd be able to read the ABS code(s) yourself and, assuming the WSS is acting up, read the actual value from the WSS as you rotate the raised wheel or drive. The free "FORScan Demo for Android" version cannot reset any codes, but I wouldn't worry about that until after you've read them. And some codes will reset on their own anyway once the underlying problem has been fixed.

If you have an iOS device, there's also a free "FORScan Viewer for iOS" version which I suspect acts like the free Android demo version, but I've never run the former.

Even better (long-term) would be any old Windows (XP or higher) laptop and a wired (USB) scantool. The basic (non-demo) Windows version of FORScan is both totally free and more capable than the Android/iOS (demo and/or paid) versions.

However you decide to tackle this, good luck! And please keep us posted on whatever you find.