front ABS sensors......ARRRGGGHHH!!

[Zip]

....christ, why didn't anyone tell me how bloody difficult it is to get the front sensors out of my 2002 s8...?

Drivers sides, had to take caliper, disc and dust shield off to get enough leverage with my grips (and thick screwdriver to prize out at the same time). Sensor now chewed to b**gery, and mounting plate (with grub screw hole) now cracked.

Excellent.

Now on to passenger side...

Manage to strip one of the 10mm hex heads on the brembo calipers. Arrgh!! How the hell do I get that shifted now? Down to a garage with some
airtools, me thinks.

Anyway, all reassembled after a couple of gallons of WD40, brake cleaner, and copper grease, and ABS errors have gone and all ok.

Still need to get that caliper off...

So...who's got the best FL ABS sensor removal technique....?

Zip

[Mr K]

erm, am i missing something? whilst doing my front arms i took the ABS sensors out and gave them a wipe to get all the bits off them.

Not sure why need to go near the caliper, or which 10mm bolt you have stripped. It it not the small allen bolt on the upright, then pull them out? opposite side of the upright to the caliper iirc (although i cant picture it in my head).

[Zip]

...would have loved for it to be a simple pull out job. No idea why mine are so seized compared to others. The bore into which the sensor slips is quite rough and corroded on the inside.

As I said, I had no choice but to take the dust guard off (which involves removing the disc) to allow me to get a pair of grips onto the metal part (where the allen grub screw goes through) without crushing the plastic of the sensor itself.

Sounds like you have just been lucky. Weird, 'cos my car has only done 76k miles.

Zip

[Mr K]

hmm, sounds like a right pain! I feel for you having spent an entire morning drilling out a pinch bolt the other day... why couldnt audi have used better metal / assembly lubricant.

[Duffy]

I stripped one of the same caliper retaining bolts on mine last week whilst doing discs and pads.
Drill the head off (I used a 10mm drill then stepped up through 1mm increments to 13mm) and then pull the caliper off, the screw came out by hand thereafter.

Time consuming but straightforward enough in the end.

[Zip]

Originally Posted by Duffy

I stripped one of the same caliper retaining bolts on mine last week whilst doing discs and pads.
Drill the head off (I used a 10mm drill then stepped up through 1mm increments to 13mm) and then pull the caliper off, the screw came out by hand thereafter.

Time consuming but straightforward enough in the end.

Sounds sensible. I was thinking of cutting a wacking great groove with a Dremel, but then I would need the mother of all screwdrivers!!!