88TC, brake problems!

I talked to my brother inlaw who is a ford mechanic,he had his parts guys dig back in the archives and found it to be listed as an abs pressure warning switch part# E7-SZ2C244-A.It has to be ordered.I called several dealers in the area,price ranges anywhere from $160.00 to $229.00. Lucky for me my brother inlaw gets a discount,it will only cost me $110.00. As far as replacing this thing,the 36mm deep impact socket I purchased wont go on the switch all the way because the electric pump motor sits to close to the switch.At this point it looks like I will have to remove the complete hydraulic brake master assembly from the car.I'm real thrilled about that.I have been screwing around with this thing since the weekend,its time to stop procrastinating do what I got to do.Hope this info helps anybody else with the same problem.If anybody knows a better way to change this thing please let me know.Thanks, Craig.

I have replace mine without removing anything. Its a pain, but can be done. The hydraulic brake assembly (for the most part) contains 2 parts. The part with pressure switch can move some as you try to loosen it. So i used wood shims behind the "moveable" part (between the part and the firewall). Stacked them to get the rights spacing for no movement (for a tight fit) and electrical taped them together and stuck them between the part and the firewall. Now the "movable" part of the hydraulic brake assembly will be still. Now you can get a good force directy on the switch to loosen it. I used very odd looking vice grips because no wrench combo i could find would work. The vice grips where typicall at the end (tip) but then opened up (when fully closed they are about 1.5 diameter opening in the middle of the jaws). I was able to lock these and then loosen the switch. Never normally use vice grips but i figured the switch is bad anyway and it was a last resort and it worked! I thought the switch was about $120 new, but maybe with high demand/availability it has gone up. Hope this helps alot less work. There is definitely not much wrench movement room tho. I guess another thought it might help to remove the intake might be easier then moving any brake lines. Good luck.

Just want to add a little more info that I found that might help others.There is actually a specific tool made by ford that was supplied to dealers as part of a tool kit to remove this switch.The tool part number is T85P20215B. As of yet I have not found one,but have several contacts looking at there Ford dealers.Thinking that not to many people bring these vehicles in to dealers for service anymore and that this system was only on 1987-1992,maybe they would be willing to part with this tool.Also found a website with some detailied info this system.it is www.albeedigital.com/supercoupe/articles/abs-system.html

Nice link, very interesting read, I hope mine NEVER breaks....

I had the same problem with removing the switch on my 88.
I had an old 1 1/4" combination wrench I cut in half to get in that cramped area. I used a grinder to enlarge the open end for a very snug fit to the new switch. I then moved as much stuff out of the way as possble, mounting bolts and including the reservoir for the brake fluid (after emptying it of course) to make the lower front brake section loose. I was then able to get at the switch with the wrench fairly easy. This sounds alot worse than it really was to do.

If you leave some brake fluid in the section going into the brake assembly (where the tank mounts to), you won't have to bleed the system. Just put everything back together (new switch), fill brake fluid up to the full mark, wait till the bubbles stop and turn your key on to see that your pump runs.
Getting that allen head mounting bolt (you'll know the one I'm talking about shortly) back in was probably the hardest thing to do.
Have fun!

Well I finally got that PWS changed,but I still had a hard pedal and both the brake light and abs lights still on. Re-ran the diag again,now showed relay to be bad. Replace the relay,did nothing. Performed diag again,shows relay bad. Thought that, hey its possible I got a bad relay,so I took it back to the parts store and got another. No difference,I still have hard pedal and both brake lights still on. Diag still says relay bad. Anybody got any ideas,Im about ready to blow this thing up. Unfortunately my wife just reminded me that it would be a bad idea seeing that I have a lot of $$$ tied up in this thing. I bought it for $500.00 from the original owner who had it sitting for a few years. I knew it was going to need tires and battery,but after flushing coolant system out,I ended up replacing heater core{tech article here really helped with that,Thanks.},thermostat,and water pump. At that point I figured I might as well replace all the coolant hoses as well. Then power steering pump went bad,valve cover gasket leaked,tps sensor failed,fuel pump died and filler neck grommet leaked,sunroof seal[another helpful tech article on this site},both headlamp assemblies and the alternator died. Of course the regular maint. stuff,Spark plugs,dist cap & rotor,fuel filter,belts,air filter,oil & filter. Besides this brake problem,it looks to have an oil leak now from the front crank area. To be honest I'm getting kind of tired of working on this thing. I've got a 66 Impala SS convert,that I was in the middle of a frame off rod-ification.It's been put on the back burner while I've been messing with the turbobird. Help please Im at my wits end. Thanks for letting me vent.

You may have bad wiring or connection where the relay plugs in??

Yeah,I went back out this morning and re-ran diag,it said to repair the circuit from pin one of the pws connector to ground. I scotched lock a new wire into the wire by the pws connector and ran it to ground. The brake seemed to work fine,but both brake lights were still on,after a few stops,the pedal went hard again. I ran diag again,it came up as same thing again. I plugged everthing back together and rechecked,brakes seemed to work,lights still on,brake pedal went hard again. I dont know if I should cut the wire completely, and if I do is that going to create a problem somewhere else in the circuit? Any thoughts ?

As Pete said, check the connector that plugs into the bottom of the relays. Mine was loose and not locked in. When the relay was put back in, the relay would push the connector down without the pins from the relay getting deep enough into the socket to make a good connection.
Sounds like your problem...

Try changing the Accumulator , the ball looking thing on top of the ABS system , that is 90% of what happens when you get hard brakes and the ABS light comes on . Prior.com has them around 100 bucks is what I paid for one , easy to install and that will fix it . DW