5kcstq brake lockup surprise

[auditude at cox.net]

Hello list,

Yesterday, I was driving my '88 5kcstq and heading towards an intersection when the light
started to turn yellow.  At first I was going to give it some gas and get through it, but after I
started to do that I changed my mind when I saw the anti-red light running camera.

Not one to want a ticket that I could prevent, I hit the brakes expecting to come at a stop
sometime soon.  Well, instead of slowing down effectively, I ended up locking up at least one
wheel and started skidding for what seemed like an incredible distance.  I had time to sit
there flabbergasted for a moment before I started pumping the pedal repeatedly.  That didn't
much help.

As I started to slide into the intersection, the light had already turned red I believe, and I
swung the car to the right and make a right turn out of it.  I wasn't much interested in sitting
at that red light after all the excitement, even if I would have been able to stop before the
intersection.

That doesn't sound like a car with ABS, does it?  Well, my ABS relay is pulled due to the
system prematurely triggering when the car has almost completed a stop.  This is reported
due to contamination/corrosion of the toothed CV joint surface that the ABS sensors read.
Pulling the relay stopped the premature triggering, but disabled ABS as far as I know.

This is probably worsened by the worn struts that are on the car.  I think the wheels aren't
held tightly to the road due to the struts being soft.  So, I'm certainly discouraged with the
safety of my 5kcstq at it's present configuration.  At least I was able to learn of how crappy
my stopping distance really is, without having to test the crashworthiness at the same time.

I have some struts, and springs, queued to be installed into the 5kcstq, that should help a
lot.  I'm wondering if the ABS could be helped/fixed by getting some of those consumable
plastic sensor spacers that are required to correctly position the sensors.  The toothed
section on my CV joints do not appear to have anything visibly wrong with them, they
actually look fine to me.  This is a California/Arizona car, if that helps to imagine that it was
not subjected to the corrosion that an east coast car experiences.

Anyhow, I thought I'd share my eye-opening/butt-puckering (thankfully not tire-flat-spotting,
like before) experience with the list.  Other relevant information is that I'm running Fuch's
with stock-sized Yokohama S306's (Tire Rack's special model), and G60's with whatever
pads were on there when I got the car.  This was on a dry asphalt street, and I was perhaps
going about 50mph at the time I hit the brakes, and I would say I slid for like 5 car lengths,
or at least it seemed like it.

Sort of a timely story, considering the snow-driving, ABS-or-not, threads lately.

Later,

Ken