REPLACING THE ABS/ASR PUMP IN THE 360

The ABS/ASR pump does 2 things in the car. 1) it provides a pulsed pressure to the cas wheels when slipping in slippery conditions, and 2) it pulses brake pressure to the rear wheels when you're gunning it in a corner, preventing you from slipping thus functioning as a traction control of sorts.

Normal cars only have the pump active when the ABS brakes are active on ice or in the rain. In 360's the pump is active whenever the car is driving aggressively, keeping you on the road. Thus, the pump in the ASR unit that provides the pulsed braking controlling the slip control, or traction, is on more than normal cars. Hence, I anticipate that as the 360 and 430 fleet ages, burned out ABS/ASR units or their pumps will be more common. I bought mine with the pump burned out and the "ASR" and "(-)" Brake lights were active on the dash panel. I decided the time was now to change the pump. You can drive the car, as I have for the last year.. but you can't be an idiot. The car will brake and drive fine, the difference is the rear wheels will lock up more easily in hard braking, that may be a problem depending on the situation you're in.. possibly causing crunching metal. The bosch engineers have allowed you to drive the car, albeit carefully, if the ABS/ASR pump goes out.

 

To replace a burned out ABS/ASR pump I did the following:

!!! The repair manual states you should remove more things than I have so I have deviated from the official repair protocol. !!!

That being said, the first thing that you need to do it remove the front panel and top panel in front of the window. I marked the windshield wipers with masking tape to facilitate their replacement before I removed them from the car. You need to remove the wipers, and the top panel via the same size allen screws as the front panel of the luggage compartment. Put all the nuts washers and screws in a bag for later. see pic below. TURN OFF the power switch in the front compartment.
(@30 minutes to 40 min. time)
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

If you are looking at this picture saying "wow that looks hard" or "OH MY".. stop here and hand the car to your mechanic or dealership because this is the easy part. Compared to a porsche 928 clutch master cylinder replacement being a 10/10 difficulty, this is a solid 6-7/10. If you are ready for more..

 

The ABS/ASR pump is in the left hand portion of the compartment. It has four brake line connections on the top. 11mm wrench (small) and 13mm wrench size (big). there are also two additional connections BEHIND the pump, one is 11mm, the other 13mm (see bottom pic).That are visible by looking down from behind the unit. The entire unit is held into an aluminum cradle by 2(two) 13mm nuts. Each of these will have to be removed before you can replace the unit, but please read on below before you continue!!!!
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

At this point, you can see what you have to do.. my experience with 20 year old porsche 928 repair has taught me, its that these brake fittings will probably round out and thus be impossible to remove. SO, you can try using a regular crescent wrench, or you can get a better tool. Advice: buy a $20 set of split crescent wrenches like this BEFORE you begin. They grip the brake lines better and don't round the brake fittings as readily. All you need are 13mm and 11mm wrenches to loosen the fittings. You can also loosen the brake lines from the chassis in their holder (see pic below)
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Once you have the wrenches, go to each fitting and loosen it. You can be sure which fittings are going to move and which ones are irreversibly frozen and round out. I managed to get all of them unfrozen except the top right line. I ordered it from ricambi for.. get this.. $10! (Thank you Daniel!)
The lines on top of the unit are straight forward, the ones behind the unit are a pain, access them from above. You can do these last after the top fittings are loose and the two 13mm nuts holding the unit into the cradle are removed.

To remove the 13mm nuts holding the unit into the cradle, I found a 14mm or 15mm flat metal blad that I dremeled into a wrench to place in between the cradle and the ABS/ASR unit while turning the 13mm bolts. Loosening these will allow you to move the ABS/ASR unit back and forth to better remove the rear fittings.
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

I should note at this time that the Workshop manual dictates that you remove the master switch for turing off the power in the car and remvoe the aluminum cradle. The cradle is removed by one bolt in the right wheel well and two 13mm bolts behind the master switch. I think they do this to better facilitate removal and replacement of the rear fittings on the ABS/ASR unit. I DID NOT ELECT TO DO THIS. I was able to replace the unit by not removing this extra stuff. I packed the area around the unit with rags to absorb any brake fluid that should spill and removed the electrical connector on the front of the unit. You simply pull the plastic tab toward you, the connector lifts off the unit automatically.
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

That being said.. after loosing up the cradle nuts, I removed the 11mm fittings on the top of the unit (small). I then removed the two 13mm fittings on the top of the unit and placed the open ends into a plastic tube that fed into a container, collecting brake fluid as it drains out of the system.

I then started the fun part... removing the two rear fittings. It's a TIGHT fit. There is a plastic drainage pipe that is also conveniently in the way. I removed the plastic pipe. You can then put your 13mm and 11mm wrenches from the top, and loosen each fitting a 1/4 to 1/2 turn at a time. It's excruciating and slow.. but be patient, the fittings will come off. Once they are off, you can lift the pump off its cradle and out of the car. I kept the frozen fitting and hose on the old ASR unit when I removed it.
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

You take your new or used ASR/ABS unit and fit any bushings or fittings from the old unit onto it. The two 13mm bolts that hold the unit into the cradle can be pulled right out of the old unit and pushed into the new one. There is a rubber grommit in the bottom of the unit that can be replaced as well. Getting the 13mm nuts into the cradle can be a pain (washers can bind with the cradle). It'll fit in the end.

The rags to absorb brake fluid can be removed at this time as well...

 

Now the fun part. Once the unit is in the cradle, you can use your hand to pull the fittings to the ASR/ABS unit. The fittings can be a pain to position because of the tight space involved and that brake fittings have to fit at a flat 90 degree angle before the threads will catch. I pulled on the ASR/ABS unit to get the correct angle while turning the fittings with a wrench from above. It's tight, but patience will win in the end. Eventually (about 20 min. of trying) both seated and I was able to tighten them 1/4 to 1/2 a turn at a time. Fun (not). When these two are tight (15 ft. lbs per manual), the hardest part is done. The manual is probably right in removing the cradle and main power switch to give better access, but you can make things work if you want by skipping these steps.

The top fittings go in easy. I started with the rear right, then rear left, front left then finally the front right fitting.

The fittings/pipes on the top of the unit are done last to maintain the space above the ASR unit for replacing the rear fittings.

 

After all the pipe fittings are in and tight, the 13mm bolts in the cradle are tightened. I used my improvised simple metal wrench to hold the 13mm cradle bolts, in order to tighten the 13mm nuts.

Once the cradle bolts are tight, the brake system is bled to remove any air.
I used a "Y" vinyl tube into a container filled about 1" with brake fluid to bleed the system.
1) The vinyl tube is put on both 8mm fittings on the brake master cylinder and the 8mm fittings loosened. I pumped the brake pedal about 10 -15 times (replacing brake fluid as needed) to purge air from the system.
2) I did the same for each brake caliper pumping the brake between 10 -25 times to purge all air from the system (7mm if I recall at the caliper).
3) I finalized with one final bleed of the 2 fittings on the brake master cylinder before testing the bleed.

 

When done, I turned on the master power switch and gave the car 3 minutes to energize before I turned the key to start it.

Final result: No dash lights on.
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

While the panels are off, remember to clean the grounds on each side of the base of the windshield to limit future electrical issues.

Now to just put the front compartment panels back on, and it's done.

You're finished!
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Greg,

The pins were actually pretty clean.. I was sooo excited last night on the test drive and relieved that I got it in, and the brakes work fine that I didn't press things further.

I did an agressive stop and I didn't have any problems.. I'm PRESUMING that you have to get the SD2 bleed to have it done right.. don't worry this dardevil will test things out further in the next week. Since Bosch made the unit, I can't imagine that their engineers would require an SD2 in order for the system to work, that seems counter to the failsafe design principles of modern braking systems. I wonder if ferrari stipulates an SD2 bleed to ENSURE no small bubbles are in the unit, and secondly as a legal disclaimer. I bled three bottles of brake fluid through the system. It should be bubble free by now, and you don't have to start the car to bleed it. Pumping the pedal when the car is off is sufficient. I'll let you know how things work out. (I'll post the pins tonight when I get home)

The motor itself actually is held on with two size 25 (I think) Torx screws. It's coming off this week and I'll post the motor part number here on fchat as well for posterity. FUN!

 

My understanding based on the diagnostic last year was the motor was burned out.
My car has 51500 miles on it. I don't know how the prior owners drove it or if they tracked it extensively, which might wear down the motor with greater activation of the unit.
Not sure. Of interest.. the motor on the unit that I pulled out of the car was different than the one that went in. The once that went in simply had the wire enter the motor from the harness. The old burned out motor had a different plastic harness with a drain built into it to let any water exit that might build up (not sure here why had it). This drain may have allowed humidity into the pump thus leading to early motor wear.

I'm sure your ABS/ASR system will be fine. These cars are in my eyes about as reliable as the equivalent year porsche. (F1 pump excluded from comment respectfully)...
Just know that if the lights go on for whatever reason, you can fix it without needing a dealership and a $3000 ferrari ABS/ASR pump.

 

Don't worry Greg, I went a year with a inop/partially op pump in the car... I'll be careful.

 

Picture of pins on the ABS connector.
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Thank you Sunracer! Hopefully I won't have to mess with fittings of ANY sort in the near future. I've even tried tapping (lightly) the fittings to loosen any corrosion. Thanks for the tip with the needle nose vice grips.

That's kind of how I got off the final fitting that was stuck so tight.. once out of the car I used a vice grip to crank it off the aluminum pump assembly. Now I'm rebuilding it. Seems that when the pump stops (and it had stopped for quite some time) the pump valves tend to rust and fix themselves solid. So clean off corrosion, new valves and motor.. and I'll have a spare. Fun.