| Author |
Message |
    
muskyman
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 07, 2003 - 12:46 pm: | 
|
Hey all
just got back from 2 weeks in northern wisconsin and upper migh.
I spent the better part of the trip wheeling the 2 tracks and back woods trails of the Chequamegon,Nicholet and Ottawa national forests. I put on about 1200miles offroad thanks to the complete lack of snow I was able to drive many trails that normally would be closed to wheeled vehicles and in use by the snowmobiles. all the trails,bogs and swamps are frozen giving access to areas that during the summer would be unreachable by anything other then a florida swamp buggy or a helicopter.
as I promised I did some crude testing of my ABS system. I pulled a heavily loaded snowmobile trailer to the north woods in a ice storm to begin with giving me a few good ABS actuated moments to know my system was working.
I started by checking my system over to make sure the system was in good working order then I set out looking for some ice on a nearby lake to play arround. just as I assumed as the surface gets slicker the system improves braking distance dramaticly ,on the bare ice of the lake the differance was night and day. After a number of runs both with the system working and with the ABS pump unplugged I returned to the garage and replaced my brake pads with a fresh set both front and rear. then returned to the ice to see the difference.The ABS system worked better with the new pads pulsing much faster and allowing a higher amount of stearing control then it did with the very worn pads. a quick disconnect of the black connector at the ABS pump returned the truck to the locked sliding condition it had with the worn pads and the system disconnected. on the slightly sand covered paved roads from about 50MPH the ABS assisted stops where about 10 to 15 feet longer then I could achieve using threshold braking teqnique.from a truley mash the brakes panic stop the ABS beat the locked tires by at least 25 feet every time. This confirmed my belief that like in most motorsports driver skill always plays a major role in performance results.
on dead dry roads even the hardest panic stops would not kick in my ABS for more then 1 or 2 pulses and stopping distance seamed so comparable between ABS and no ABS that I dont think its much of a issue in such high traction situations.
2 days later I found a long slick bumpy down hill trail that was covered in ice where run off had frozen, as I crested the top and began down my ABS kicked in right away I rode it out all the way to the bottom(about 200yrds) with the ABS pulsing the the whole way down. the decent speed was a little faster then I would like but was very controlled giving me plenty of steering control. when I got to the bottom I unplugged the ABS pump and headed back up with the use of some good Moe and tire spinning I got back to the top, turned around and headed back down. allthough I could stop the truck at a couple spots on the way down that the ABS just pulsed right through there where also some spots I needed to get completly off the brakes to prevent the rear end from coming around and getting the truck sideways, this then produced a fast bouncing somewhat out of control decent that I would rather avoid.
now this area was both icy and bumpy and I would say it was a very good test of the braking system. what it actually showed me is I would like to install a ABS defeat switch so that I could switch back and forth at will in an instant giving me the best of both worlds.
I would have liked to shoot some video of this hill decent but that lack of a willing camera person kept me from doing so.
I still plan on looking deeper into this as it raised all kinds of questions in my head as to what really casuses the ABS failures that so many talk about? the difference between the old pads and the new ones makes me believe that the condition of the system is deffinetly a major contributor. I plan on messing around with unseating the ABS sensors to see what effects it has. I will also have one of my regular wheeling buddies shoot some video for me at that time to see if I can catch some of these conditions on tape
all in all I had a great time and appreciate the comfort level these Disco's afford you in the back country. after 25 years bouncing down trails in jeeps,scouts,blazers,bronco's,power wagons ect ect...I really enjoy my Disco. |
Peter Matusov (Pmatusov)
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 07, 2003 - 01:07 pm: |
|
awesome write-up, Thom.
I've done my (un-scientifically-substantiated) ABS vs non-ABS comparison in Sequoia NF (Nwy 180), and the seat-of-the-pants feeling was much the same as yours. I could out-do the ABS in most but not all cases, and I definitely would not want to leave my wife and son without ABS assist.
It looks like, the combination of worn pads and unseated/flaky sensors does the trick on the ABS. I haven't heard of ABS computer failure here yet.
peter |
andythoma
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 07, 2003 - 01:25 pm: |
|
I agree with Peter that the ABS failures listed on this board seem to come from sensor failure. It would be interesting to see if there is a corrilation between pad wear and sensor condition. However I'll bet they don't effect each other. The big problem is those damn sensor cost to much. I guess I'm just a cheap bastard, but you motivated me to replace the sensors that are bad on mine now. Has anyone tried used? Any suggestions on were to get new/used sensors?
Andy 95 d1 |
muskyman
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 07, 2003 - 01:36 pm: |
|
hey peter! happy new year!
yea I gotta agree with you about the wife and child, I would not be inclined to just disconnect it by any means. in the short or long run I think you can steer around things more often then stop short of them so ABS wins in my eyes.
the best part of the trip is I got my wife and daughter to spend endless hours on the trail and I think I finnaly got the seed of wheeling planted deep enough to take root . my wife was not only getting into it for the senery but she also was taking an intrest in why I was chossing certain lines over obstacles and why I was cautious in some terain while aggresive in others. there was one strech of frozen ruted and rocky terain that needed to be tip toed through and took almost an hour to go a mile without a single comment from her, she just may have the bug for good.she sure is impressed with what I could get her mall crawler to do,that second disco will fit nice in the stable.
thom |
Peter Matusov (Pmatusov)
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 07, 2003 - 02:52 pm: |
|
awesome - i did a similar thing, took my wife out to the trails the day after i got her the disco (on her b-day). a couple of months later, after one snow run, she asked me of my plans on lifting the truck and bolting on some gizmos on it ("when?").
however, now it looks like the girls don't really want to go wheelin' if the road to the trail is more than 2 hours long... which is about 100% of the cases here 
Andy, I replaced my sensors - all of them - with used ones from a low-mileage 98 disco, and it fixed all my ABS problems from there on.
peter |
Milan (Milan)
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 07, 2003 - 06:12 pm: |
|
Hi Thom,
Thanks for the write up. While we finally had winter here and got us some ice, it is still, thankfully, unusually warm. I found some ice in the woods and I even had my video camera but I was always without the Disco. So I have not conducted the experiment yet.
I'm very intrigued by your findings, especially on sheer ice. However, your road (ice with some sand, dry pavement) and the downhill test agree with what I found in the past.
I guess we'll always disagree about the disconnecting though, as the unpredictability of when the ABS will kick in in half decent traction conditions still wants me to have it turned off rather than on. You also seem to prefer a slightly faster downhill without stopping, whereas I would take the occasional slide but ability to stop over the former.
Kudos and thanks on taking the time to do this and report the results. |
|
Closed: New threads not accepted on this page