RE: 89 continental brakes
I can't believe the difficulty I'm having getting diagnosis information and wiring diagrams. Ford/Lincoln's electronic document system only goes back 12 years, and a search of the dust covered older paper manuals in the "don't-throw-it-out-we-may-need-it-someday" room came up empty.
You may want to go to
www.alldata.com . It's the most comprehensive source of information I know of. You can get it all; shop manuals, wiring diagrams, TSBs... It's great, but you'll have to pay $25. I think it may be worth it.
I'll give you what I can from memory.
First of all, there's two almost identical test connectors near the firewall, passenger side: one's for the EECIV system, the other (usually red) is for plugging a scan tool into the ABS system and retrieving codes. If you could tell me what codes you're getting, or if the scan tool gets no codes at all (meaning we've got no power to the ABS module), it could narrow things down.
The fact you have no assist means the pump isn't coming on.
Why?
You started at a good place: feeding power and ground to the pump. It should buzz, but it didn't. Not a good sign.
Let's backtrack a bit and see if the car can give the pump what it needs.
Using an ohmmeter, check the black wire at the two-wire pump connector for continuity to ground. I remember having lots of problems with corrosion in that circuit. If you find an open circuit, repair it or fabricate a new ground to the car body.
With a voltmeter between the power wire of the pump connector and ground, pump the brake pedal~ 10 times, start the car, and see if you've got battery voltage going to the pump.
If you have both of these, you need the pump and motor assembly. Big bucks.
There's a pressure switch near the bottom of the accumulator which tells the ABS module that hydraulic pressure is low and the pump must come on. It's just a small thing with two wires going to it. They went bad fairly often. Unplug it, pump the brake pedal ~ 10 times, then start the car and see if the pump comes on. Jump the wiring connector and do the same thing. If the pump comes on either of those ways, the pressure switch is no good. A lot less bucks.
Let's go with this for now and see what happens.
The system may have a number of reasons for not allowing the pump to come on, from a problem with the ABS module power relay or pump motor relay to bad wiring between the module and the hydraulic control unit.
I'd love to give you wiring locations and colours to check further or pinpoint procedures for following up on code retrieval, but anything more at the moment would just be B.S. to make myself look good.