For a long time, I've wanted to disable the ABS on my 1st gen Tacoma. In fact, when I originally ordered the truck in late 1999, I explicitly ordered it - more than a month before I was going to take delivery, which was quite a bit of lead time in those days - with no ABS. Unfortunately, the day I went in to pick it up - after being assured the previous week that they'd have the truck I ordered on the lot - they still hadn't acquired a truck with the options I'd requested. Instead, they had a truck that also had ABS and a sunroof, and decided that they would "throw them in for free."
At the time, I didn't love it - especially the sunroof, since I was worried about leaks - but I accepted the truck and moved on with life. I don't think I engaged the ABS for the first 16 years, anyway, so I didn't really think about that again.
It was only when I started using the Tacoma for adventures that I realized I needed to make a change. And by "needed," I suppose that I've been out an about for more than 1,000 nights in the last 8 years, and I've been just fine, so...
At any rate, I posted my first inquiry into disabling the ABS on TacomaWorld back on January 9, 2017.
Even when I posted this, the solution seemed... wrong.
I eventually got three pages of replies to that query, with several folks mentioning what I later learned were the common ways of disabling ABS on 1st gen Tacomas:
- Pulling the 30A ABS fuse from the engine-bay fuse block.
- Rip out all of the ABS plumbing and ABS control module, replacing the brake lines with the non-ABS variant.
The first option only works on 2001-2004 Tacomas; earlier models like mine have no such dedicated ABS fuse. The second option would have worked - and even freed up space in the engine bay, which would be nice given how crowded it is - but I didn't really want to pull out a feature that lowered my already-high car insurance.
And so, I did nothing.
Two years passed, and unbeknownst to me, Jason @JasonLee posted his version of an on-the-fly ABS disable. It wasn't until two years after that, that I found his post, after some back and forth, I was never able to verify whether his method would work on an early-model 1st gen.
So again, I did nothing.
It wasn't until earlier this year - I think when I was Roaming Around Capitol Reef and complaining about my ABS around the campfire - that Zane @Speedytech7 mentioned, nonchalantly as always, that I should just put a switch on one of the ABS wheel sensors.
When one of the ABS wheel sensors stops sending a signal to the ABS ECU, the ABS system will be disabled, and will illuminate the ABS light on the dash.Zane, as though this is just common knowledge
Could it really be that easy?
Spoiler: Yes, it really is that easy.
The great thing about this solution is that there's a two-wire connector for the front wheel ABS sensors mounted to the top of the frame rail on both the driver and passenger sides of the vehicle. If I could just get an extra pair of connectors, I could make my own wiring harness that just plugged in between the existing connectors on one side of the vehicle. Then, I could run a wire to a switch that I could just turn off or on depending on whether I was on pavement (ABS on) or dirt (ABS off).
This is the place (driver side) to insert my custom harness and switch.
So then, I delayed another 4 months.
Finally, I set about getting the parts necessary. There weren't many, and except for the connectors, I had everything else laying around from previous projects:
- Front ABS sensor female connector (part of a larger harness, but I'd just cut off the connector).
- Front ABS sensor male connector.
- Approximately 10 feet of 18-gauge OFC pure copper automotive wire
- An ON-OFF switch
- Some ¼-inch braided wire sleeve
- A variety of glue-lined heat shrink
- Some crimp-on blade connectors (variety box) to secure the wire to the switch.
And a few tools
- Linemans pliers or wire cutters
- Wire crimper for insulated terminals
- Soldering iron (get a good one, you'll thank yourself later)
- Heat gun (get a cheap one, it's just blowing hot air)
The two connectors originally came packaged like this; the smaller one was in the box.
Everything I needed.
With everything in hand, I set about creating my wiring harness. In the end, it's a very simple harness
- One wire - it doesn't matter which one - between the two connectors is just soldered to the other as a pass-through of the existing circuit.
- For the other wire, solder an 18ga lead onto each connector that is long enough to reach to your switch location, usually in the cab somewhere.
- Protect the entire thing with heat shrink and braided sleeve.
Wiring diagram
The harness, minus the protective braided sleeve.
From there, it was a simple matter of connecting my harness between the existing ABS connectors, and running the 18ga leads to a switch I installed in the driver side kick panel. It's out of the way, but easy to reach, and works perfectly.*
The black ABS switch is the second kick panel switch, now next to the door chime disable switch.
ABS disabled.
* One thing to note with the ABS sensor - ABS ECU communication, is that, once the signal from the sensor is interrupted, the ECU goes into an error state. This illuminates the ABS light and disables ABS on the vehicle. In order to re-enable the ABS ECU - and thus the ABS on the vehicle - the key must be turned to the off position.
Thus, while disabling ABS can be done "on demand" by flipping the ABS disable switch to OFF while the vehicle is running, reenabling ABS requires turning the Tacoma off and then turning it back on again when the ABS disable switch is in the ON position.
In this Series
