Honda Odyssey Forum banner

2003 Odyssey possible ABS issue

3.2K views 19 replies 8 participants last post by  OdyVanMan04  
#1 ·
Hi all, new to the forum, need some help diagnosing a drive line/braking problem. The van has 62,000 miles, it was owned by my wife's father and he rarely drove it. For the past couple of months my wife has noticed an intermittent problem. It shows up as a sharp wobble in the steering at 50+mph, the brake pedal feel gets very hard and once stopped you can smell the left front brake is getting hot. No ABS lights. I replaced the caliper after noticing the rotor was not wearing normally and suspected the caliper had failed (pins were fine). That did not fix the problem. Any ideas? Could I have an ABS problem even though the light is not coming on?
 
#4 ·
another thing to look at is the pad slides, if there too tight the pad cant back off properly, I recently went through this and both fronts were smoking hot, tried everything and a new set of $10 spring clip slides fixed it right up.
 
#5 ·
Another thing...too much Sil-Glide on the pins can actually create a suction that prevents the caliper from backing out that minuscule amount needed to keep the pads from dragging. You need just a little; this is one instance where too much does not make things better.

OdyVanMan's post is the reason I keep re-using OEM spring clips. I've had clips that were a pain in terms of allowing the pad keys to seat, so I just removed them and re-installed the old ones (they're stainless steel, IIRC, and other than being really dirty, were just fine in a structural sense).

OF
 
#11 ·
You may have something here! I remember way, way back in time reading about a GM brake booster failing internally, resulting in a hard pedal. Our Honda vac booster operates similarly, so it's reasonable to think that it can endure similar operating malfunctions.

OF
 
#10 ·
I second the slider pins. Two on each wheel. They need to move easily and have a coating of high temp grease on them, like Sil-Glide). One indications of wear when they (or just one) sticks is only a portion of the pad rubs on the rotor. This is seen by a narrow rub band on the rotor and not the normal rub (shiny clean) band on the rotor. Pretty easy to check that pad contact area and slider pin movement.
Buffalo4
 
#16 ·
ok, I replaced the master cylinder and that seems to have corrected the problem. The brake pedal feel is now normal (it was very tight before even with no wobble). There was also a brake squeal when backing up at times, that appears to be gone as well. I'll update this thread if anything changes. Thanks all for the input.