** update **
 

New information to report.

Irene dumped so much water here in PA that my Trac /ABS issue reared it's ugly head again. So, I decided to do more online searching to see what else I could find on this issue in the three years since I first reported it back in 1998.

Long story short, I found many more reported incidents of this issue with other owners and many of these were related to driving in the wet. The fix was reported to be cleaning and then weatherproofing the electrical harness connection to the TRW Anti-Lock module located under the left side (driver's side) floor.

After removing the black plastic guard and inspecting the harness connector I could see it was wet even though the remainder of the van had dried completely since my last trip this afternoon.

I immediately saw why.

The wire harness coming from the front of the van leading to the TRW unit is covered with plastic split-loom -- OK, fine. The loom was not taped, so water was able to easily enter the split near a bent section of harness and travel directly into the harness connector, which of course WAS taped to the loom, but only going back about an inch or two.

SO, when driving in wet conditions the split loom acts as a conduit, beautifully routing rainwater directly into the harness connector, which is tightly taped to the last inch of the split loom, holding in a good amount of water directly where the harness head connects to the ABS module.

Way to go Ford!

I untaped the entire mess and cut the split loom back about 4 inches to eliminate the conduit for water. Then I disconnected the harness from the ABS unit, air dried it with my compressor and reassembled with a liberal amount of dialectric grease after cleaning the module contacts.

I believe this is the fix for hundreds (thousands?) of Freestar vans that are experiencing Trac / ABS trouble in the wet / salt / snow.

Yep...The unit sets right where the front tire thows all of the snow, slush and crud here in Western NY during the winter. I posted about finding corrosion on the connector pins back in 9/2008 for the ABS unit. Cleaning everything and applying Dielectrical grease resolved the issues I was having back then. Have had no issues until about 2 months ago. TRAC OFF (CHECK TRACTION CONTROL) would pop up anytime I moved forward between 10 feet to 10 miles. Suspected and finally replaced the BRAKE PRESSURE SENSOR on the master cylinder a couple of week-ends ago and all is fine.