Probably a dumb question, but my ‘88 F250 has RABS, and I’ve managed to lock up the rear end a couple times. It doesn’t surge like modern systems do, but I have no idea if it’s supposed to. The light doesn’t come on, is there a way to test it? Should it really not lock up, or is it just supposed to make it not as easy to lock up?

 

The 9th post in this thread has a good description of the system. https://www.fullsizebronco.com/threads/88-rabs.14997/

 

Not very well, I pulled the fuse in mine and it works much better now.

 

my 88 F350 never had working rabs. when it was 3 days old the dealer bypassed it because they could not get it to work. the brakes either put you into the windshield, or did not work at all and you ran a red light. even though they "were working properly? so they just bypassed the module.

 

I pull the fuse and the bulb on all of my RABS equipped trucks. The first time I had a panic stop and the pedal fell out from under my foot for a split second, I was done with em.

 

On the positive side I have found the RABS system to work reasonably well on all three of my previous OBS trucks. My 1992 F350 had a bad hydraulic module, anti-lock never worked when I tested it on snow covered roads. I replaced it, worked fine.

I have been driving many years before any anti-lock systems were standard on production vehicles. It has it's place good or bad.

Your mileage may vary....

 

I have the same experience with RABS on the pickup and ‘87 Bronco and the 4 wheel ABS on the ‘94. I deleted ABS on the ‘87 because I replaced the 8.8 rear with a 9”.

 

Thanks all. I’ll have to check the fuse and brake lines to see if mine is bypassed/disabled. My brakes work fine, just that since I’ve managed to lock it up had me wondering. Sounds like this could be normal, or possibly that it’s bypassed, or also just not working at all!