ABSent ABS
Removing the ABS Pump on 99-04 Mustangs

Our Mustangs are wonderful but complex animals. In an effort to make our beasts as safe and efficient as possible many systems were incorporated that may not always be wanted as our cars progress further from “Street” cars to “Race” cars. Where street/race car line is drawn is well beyond the breadth of this article, and maybe even the entire Internet. It’s well known that in the performance progression many of the safety systems and creature comforts are jettisoned in the name of reduced weight and better performance. One of those choices is often the Antilock Brake System control module, or ABS Module as it is more commonly referred to. This article is my solution to the ABS Control Modules’ removal with as little hassle, and the best possibility of success. It’s a really good thing to have your brakes operating properly at the end of a project!

The ABS system’s function is to prevent the lockup of the wheels in a panic stop. This helps prevent uncontrolled skidding in an emergency situation. This should allow better control of the car and reduced braking distance. The ABS system is only an option on many of Ford’s modern cars. It is not a government mandated safety system. My son’s 2004 V6 actually did not include ABS but it is included on all the other cars in my driveway. This being said, be aware you ARE removing a safety device from you’re car and you ARE playing with a pretty important system. At least I believe the brake system is pretty important! Think very long and hard before you decide to tackle this and you ABSOLUTELY DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK. I want to go on record and say I do not recommend this project be performed on any street driven car.

The up side of this effort is to remove about eighteen pounds of weight from the nose of your car. Exactly where you want to loose it. You also free up some space there and will, to an extent, allow better airflow and cooling around your motor. The ABS pump is located between the radiator and the lower right front of the motor. It is under the T-Trim on my car and is interfering with my oversized Steeda radiator. It started irritating me during my radiator upgrade when the lines were in the way and I had to bend and wedge everything in. At that point, its fate was sealed!

My idea was to try to complete this exercise without cutting or damaging any of the existing lines or having to do any flaring of any sort. It looked like there could be a way to just tube all the existing lines together where they lay, but you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men… The hiccup was realized when I discovered the “diversity” of the connections Ford inflicted on our cars. The six lines connected to the pump are all metric bubble flair with 5 of them being 10-1 and one being 12-1. Five of the six lines are 3/16 tubing and one is ¼ tubing. Nowhere on earth was I able to find anything to connect to that one stinking 12-1 metric fitting with the ¼” bubble flair tube. That line had to be replaced or modified. On the other end of that line at the connection to the proportioning valve, it was also a 12-1 metric bubble flair connection. I was able to track down a transition fitting that would screw into the proportioning valve and leave a female 3/8-24 inverted flair female connection. I decided to just replace that whole ¼” oddball line with a pre-flared line I sourced from Autozone. At least then I didn’t have to flare any lines, which should greatly reduce the chance for leaks and not require me to spend $60 or more for a good double flare tool.

What you’ll need.
If yours is like mine, that is. With Ford, all bets are off!

Below is a Bill of Materials for what I used. Some of the Earls stuff from Summit is NOT a stock item and can take 1-2 weeks. Plan ahead!
A secondary source that filled in the long deliver items for me is Earls Indianapolis. They had some of the weird stuff in stock and were able to piece together something to use for one of the fittings they didn’t.
That note is at the bottom of the BOM. Customer service was excellent and I highly recommend them. 317.241.0318

OK, now we’re ready to get to it! Step one: Remove Engine from car. Just kidding but I couldn’t resist. I do recommend removing the radiator since it really doesn’t take that long (remember, long is a “relative” term) and provides easy access to everything including the lines that are routed below the radiator itself. I won’t include instructions for radiator removal because if you can’t figure-out how to remove the radiator, you shouldn’t be attempting this project. I also removed the inlet tube to the blower but was able to get the Power Pipe out of the way without completely taking it out of the car.

View of Top of ABS Pump

In the photo above you see the top of the ABS Pump after the Inlet tube and radiator are removed. As you can see there are six lines attached to the pump. The two Inlet lines from the proportioning valve are on the top of the pump on the left “car” side. Beside those lines on the top of the pump are the left brake lines and on the side of the pump are the right brake lines. All the lines are 3/16 line with 10-1 Metric bubble flare ends EXCEPT the Rear Inlet line is ¼” with a 12-1 Metric bubble flair connection. I have NO idea why they made that one line different from the others. All the lines can be removed with a 13mm wrench. Even the oddball 12-1 rear inlet line. Then you can remove the lower bracket mounting bolt with a 13mm and then come up top and remove the two 13mm bolts that hold the bracket to the engine side rail as shown above.

Bottom bracket mounting bolt as viewed from under the car.

Pump and Bracket showing line connections.

Above is a view of the removed pump (of course) where you can better see where the tubing was connected. The harness connector is shown in the view below. You pull it straight out horizontally toward the rear of the car and the connector will release from the pump.

Harness Connector and Lines

You can see in this view the orientation of all the lines after the pump is removed including the odd-ball ¼” rear brake input line.

Top View of Proportioning Valve

The Proportioning valve is located below the Master Cylinder by the left front fender.

Now that I have a lay of the land and access to everything the first thing I did was to remove the rear brake hose from the lower port of the transition fitting. This is the ¼” “oddball” tube. The removal can be a pain because the lower proportioning valve connection is hard to get to. I have a tubular k-member so I was able to get to it from under the car but a sawed-of 13mm wrench could also be used from the top. We all have one of those, don’t we? I pulled the line out of the holders and removed it. I then installed the transition fitting (Item 2) into the lower Proportioning valve port where the rear brake tube use to be. Next I used the removed ¼” rear brake line as a template to bend the new rear brake line tube (Item 5) to fit. Note that it has to be a little shorter because we’ve added a transition fitting to where it connects to the proportioning valve. Make SURE the nuts are at the end of the new tube before you make the first bend. I had a bender from AutoZone to handle the 3/16” tubing. It’s nothing fancy and I think it cost about $15, but worked well.

Bent Tubing (Item 5)

We are not going to run the line all the way to the old ABS location, so start at the end that attaches to the Proportioning valve and work toward the ABS pump end. The 60” line will not make it all the way to where the ABS pump was. That’s OK because we are going to end it below the radiator then run a braided flex hose (Item 7) with at transition fitting (Item 3) up to the new connection tee. Below are pictures of the tube and what it will look like at the radiator end.

Top View of installed tubing (Item 5) transition fitting (Item 3) and the 90-degree braided hose (Item 7) located at the base of the radiator.

Next install the newly bent tube into the holders and thread it into the transition fitting on the proportioning valve. Now put the transition fitting (Item 3) on the end nearest the ABS pump location. Attach the 90-degree end of the Earls braided flex hose (Item 7) to the transition fitting.

You may want to read through this whole section before starting the next step to visualize what you need to do. Next we need to prepare the lines to install the two tees (manifold blocks Item 1). To do this you will have to bend the existing lines to some extent, to align them to the tee ports. The two lines that went into the top of the ABS pump that fed the left wheels will need to be bent from a top (vertical) to a side (horizontal) position to allow them to line up with the tees. I did this CAREFULLY by hand. The lines are soft and bend easily so go slowly and DON’T CRIMP THEM! Just sort of mould them into the right position. The original front brake feed line that comes from proportioning valve will have to bent to extend up to make room for the transition fitting and coupling that will be used to attach it to the male -3 tee inlet. Hopefully a couple of pictures will be worth a couple of thousand words.

Top view showing the two tees bolted together and the lines attached as described.

The two tees can be bolted together through the mounting hole provided it the bodies. You want to have them oriented with the –3 fitting on them pointing in opposite directions as shown.

Side view showing the tees bolted together and the –3 inlets at the top and bottom.

Top/Front view showing blocks bolted together and the front brake input line connection.

Attach the wheel outlet lines/tubes to the tee assembly. Be SURE to get the two front lines attached to the front tee and the two back lines to the back tee. Not doing this correctly would be a very bad thing, indeed.

Now attach the front brake inlet line by attaching the adapter (Item 4) to the tube, then use the –3 coupling (Item 6) to attach the adapter to the –3 fitting on the front tee. Again, be sure these are all front brake lines attached to this tee.

Next attach the straight fitting end of the rear brake inlet braided hose to the –3AN connection of the REAR brake tee.

Now bleed the master cylinder and the brake lines while checking for leaks. If everything is tight, you’re good to go. Well, actually you’re good to stop…

Additional Parts and Assembly Pictures