99 blazer abs kills my car

[ricco88]

ok I got a 99 blazer s 10. there has been bad snow here lately here in victoria. probably the first time this vehical has seen snow. I was driving down th road and my abs kicked in, while I was breaking, this is a good thing, the bad thing was I lost all electrical to my dash and my abs stopped working untill I released the peddle. did this multiple times. was not fun. after I let it sit for 30 min while, I tried to start it and it would start but die right away. I had to featherythe gas to get it going. on the drive home my abs issue went away and when I turned it off. it started just fine. any ideas? would a bad alternator sending low voltage to the ecu cause this?.


also forgot to mension. my passenger side air bag light comes on and off as it pleases

[Blue Bowtie]

Sounds like a power distribution problem. The ABS draws a lot of current for the motor, and a poor connection will cause voltage drop.

I had a similar problem on a '99 just a few weeks ago. The systems would go flaky when the headlights were on and/or the high fan and a few other heavy loads were on. I ended up replacing the underhood electrical center due to deteriorating connections in the bus wiring on the underside:



I'm not saying that is your problem, but consider all the electrical connections, including the ABS power relay on the ABS unit itself.

[viggy58]

yea, almost sounds like something might be grounding out somewhere when the ABS kicks in. prob best troubleshooting would be to get an ohm meter and start tracing all the ABS wiring. like mentioned above, check the power distro. i hit a pothole hard enough to pinch/ground out some abs wiring on the bottom of it and completely kill the car while driving. blew a few fuses too.

took it apart, fixed the pinched wires and blown fuses and haven't had any more trouble since.

[ricco88]

ya I did what u said, unforunetly there was nothing loose or water in there. weird that all my problems disapeared and I got a new one. I dont think there related. my heater fan doesn't turn on anymore defrost or nothing, and I get a flashing light when I try to \select the circulation method. I'm fairly certin it's that pannel because when I hit it with my boot the lights turn off and flash and dim. untill I kick it again it turns back on. but still no fan. I found 2 wires coming from the fuse box under the hood that are not connected I have no idea what they are so I taped it up just in case that was what was causeing my shorting. I'll try to upload a picture later but I dont think that is the cause. I'm rambiling.

so new issues - fan doesn't work in the cab, and wiper motor is extremly slow.

fixed some how issues - rough idle, passenger airbag light went away and my abs works without killing the power in the cab

[viggy58]

have ya replaced the ignition switch. very common problem for blazers, causes just about everything in the cab to act screwy...

[ricco88]

ignition switch eh, well I'll try it I dont know how that would cause these issues but at this point I gotta try somthing.

was working fine yesterday fan started working again wipers were moving fast, I turned off the car when I got home and turned it back on and my fan didn't work again. this morning I got up and my wife killed the battery trying to start it.

what makes u think it's the ignition switch?

[viggy58]

like i said the ign switch causes a plethora of problems.