I recently had to make up some Auto Electronic test leads for my multi-meter. I’m busy troubleshooting a car’s electronics for a family friend.
It’s a Ford Mondeo MK4, and is coming up with errors relating to the Front Wheel Speed Sensor.
The Front Wheel Speed sensor has already been replaced, but it’s still coming up with a fault. Which means most likely there’s a wire broken somewhere. This means I will need to test for both Power and Ground since it’s a 2-wire system
The problem is, I’ve had a look at the schematic for the ABS system, it looks like the wires run from the wheel to the engine bay connector for the ABS controller. In order to do the testing, I need a multi-meter with long leads or something like a Power Probe.
I don’t have one of these, so low-tech solution it was
I wasn’t particular stuck for ideas when making this. Basically just needed something that would allow me to probe one end of the wheel speed sensor wire into the ABS controller loom in the engine bay, whilst touching the other end to the sensor. This would allow me to check for power / ground
Ideally the cable needed to be around 10 feet long to get a good reach
I had an old Electric Cable lying around (8 Amps). It was about 4 Metres long. It will do
In order to make it, I chopped off the end of Multimeter jack connector as I had some spare, and joined the cable together with some solder/heatshrink and tape. The other end of the cable, I put through the eye of a sewing need as it was a fine point for probing and long enough to reach in. I then twisted the wires and soldered / heatshrink / taped it up
After this I hooked it up for my multimeter to run a continuity test, the maximum resistance was 0.002 Ohm in continuity (usually 0.5 Ohm is the maximum allowed), so this cable was perfectly fine for testing with
Something to consider adding to your own Auto Electrical or Vehicle tool kit for diagnosis. I now have a cable long enough to allow me to test from front to the rear of the car with mu multimeter
Fingers crossed it’s just a broken wire somewhere close to the main sensor, but it’s better to have this as it forms a useful kit for any vehicle I’m working on
