Can't get it up

60 ish to 2000 ish sounds about right for the rear. Front should read around 30 to 1100 ish.
sounds like you have lost communication with the potentiometer on the front shock.
Stripped a rear shock a couple of days ago to send in to MCT for rebuild and never given this any thought before but in an emergency there are 2 grooves for the snap ring to sit in.
If in your situation the lower snap ring groove could have been used giving another 10mm of preload. ( about the same amount as going to 2 helmets on the ESA)
A bit late now. :blast
 
I took the tank off today and pulled & cleaned the connectors from the front shock as well as the back again. There's was nothing untoward in the wiring or the connectors and it has made no difference. I think its off to BMW for a fix or get those non-ESA shocks that are for sale*. The guy at Revs racing is very confident it will BMW "electronics". He reckons he has never had a preload fail on WESA shocks although in hindsight I am not sure whether he meant the shocks fail or the motor fitted to the shock. Probably the former.

* The ones that are for sale are for a GS. Mine is a GSA which I think has slightly longer shocks. I assume this will make the bike lower. Any idea how much anyone? I don't need it to be lower being 6'2" nor do i want to faff about with shorter stands.

I will add Some pics shortly...
 
I have GS OEM shocks on my ESA GSA. They are the same lengths exactly.
GSA shocks are softer sprung and damped than GS.
 
Does anyone know if I buy a used ESA motor whether or not it has to be somehow "coded" to the bike's ECU or is it plug and play with these things. There's a used front ESA motor from a 2011 GSA on eBay at £95 or offers. I am tempted throw in a cheeky low bid to try and secure it, but there's no point if it won't work anyway.

Bowker BMW want £95 / hour for diagnostics. I told them the diagnosis based on the GS911 results but they still want to hook it up first and it continues at £95/hour. I think if it was fixable via the BMW diagnostic tooling then it would have been fixed at the BMW garage in Spain. But if the new/used motor still doesn't work then I would be happier to pay Bowkers to play around in the software and ECU.

The guy at Revs racing reckon the shocks Old Codger has for sale from a 2007 GS will have the right fittings but will be shorter and wouldn't advise fitting them to a GSA. I really don't want a lower bike so am out for now. They did offer to do some diagnostic work on the shock and its motor if I can get it off and down to them so that's another avenue to consider.

I am no rush to sort this but do want it fixed before too long. It just bugs me having a problem like this.
 
The ESA motors are not replaced when you fit Wilbers shocks so having a spare has to be a good idea.

Get the eye to eye length from @Old Codger and measure your own shocks. As said, mine now has Non ESA GS shocks which are identical length to the GSA ESA units. The front is a faff but the back is easy enough.
 
The ESA units are not coded and so are plug and play.
As yours is a 2011 it will be on white power shocks so no problem.
If using the earlier showa Esa shocks in place of the later White power units they will not calibrate exactly in the one helmet + luggage position but they are near enough.
Also the pre-load on the front shock only comes in to play in the off road settings ( small mountains & large mountains).
 
That's interesting. We've always been told the later WP units are not compatible with the older Shows shocks.
 
Thanks Chaps. Yes, white power shocks. I will be be putting in a cheeky offer on that motor later.
 
That's interesting. We've always been told the later WP units are not compatible with the older Shows shocks.

Not identical but close enough, If you did not study the data you would never know.
I have Wilbers front and rear from a 2009 ESA GS ( originally Showa) which I have fitted to my 2012 ESA GS (originally white power).
The one helmet + luggage position has a small amount of extra pre-load.
The intention was to swop the ESA unit over if there was a problem.
The rebound damping motors in the bottom seem to behave almost the same, the difference in rebound damping I put down to the Wilbers.
 
Interesting stuff.

My bike is a 2008 with Showa units, so I've always avoided used Wilbers WP units believing they would not work. Live and learn.

To recap though, I replaced GSA ESA shocks with GS Non ESA shocks all OEM. They are a straight swap - same lengths. Saying that, ride height is a little higher because the GS seems to have a higher spring rate. I have both ends on minimum preload even with luggage.
 
Well, my cheeky offer of £50 for a used ESA motor has been accepted and is now winging its way my way. I will test it on the bench just to check it works and then hook it up to the bikes loom to see if the bike recognises it. If it does then I should be able to cycle it through low & high mountain. Then its just a case of getting the front shock off and getting someone to remove the old and fit the new ESA motor as I don't have access to a spring compressor (Revs perhaps as they offered to help).

If the motor still isn't recognised then it has to be a software or ECU fault. Bowker BMW time. The £50 will have been well spend as part of the diagnosis.
 
Bollocks. Wrong motor - I got one for a showa shock, not a WP one. They are very different. The eBay ad described it as for 2010 to 2013 GSA but with one miserable picture its was difficult to tell. Its going back.
 
Bollocks. Wrong motor - I got one for a showa shock, not a WP one. They are very different. The eBay ad described it as for 2010 to 2013 GSA but with one miserable picture its was difficult to tell. Its going back.

Advertise it on here someone might want it.
 
Cant get it down now....

So, to test the actual motor in the ESA device I powered it up direct from the battery - connecting the battery to poles 1 & 4 on the plug from the ESA motor. Great, it whirred away, swap over the polarity and it also whirred away. Trouble is I seem to have wound it up towards max preload and it won't go down now. I don't know which polarity does which but it doesn't seem to matter how long I leave it engaged the suspension at the front doesn't change. The motor is very quiet one way, but moans and groans the other - at least to start with. There's gap of about 5-10mm between the top of the spring and the top shock bracket which I think means there's at least some preload on it if not max preload - which I don't need now I am home and just doing the normal domestic stuff on the bike now.

Any thoughts?

I have tried running the motor both ways and pumping the suspension thinking it might be stuck somehow, but no joy. I also tried turning the spring by hand to try and get some inertia into it but again no joy.

I also just realised I haven't a clue how the ESA motor actually applies preload. Is the electricity bit a hydraulic pump that puts hydraulic pressure on a piston to compress the spring, or is it an electric motor that winds a collar down a threaded bar. Or something else. I suppose its possible the motor has gone past Max and cant re-engage or whatever it needs to do. Are the motors rebuildable?
 
I’m pretty sure it’s hydraulic (at least on Showa) the back moves continuously. The front has always sort of jumped. You can hear the motor then eventually it pops down (or up).
 
I’m pretty sure it’s hydraulic (at least on Showa) the back moves continuously. The front has always sort of jumped. You can hear the motor then eventually it pops down (or up).

Yeah, its used to do that. Now its stuck in what I assume is High Mountain, although I never noticed it jump up when I was playing around with it.
 
My 2008 ESA takes ages to cycle as Bendy describes, doing nothing for ages then suddenly overcoming stiction and lurching up or down to the new respective preload setting. I guess the little motor takes a while to build sufficient pressure.

As for your ESA sensor fault, have you tried disconnecting the battery for 30 minutes then reconnecting? I once had an ESA issue that was cured this way.
 
Yeah, its used to do that. Now its stuck in what I assume is High Mountain, although I never noticed it jump up when I was playing around with it.

High mountain is the highest preload so winding it right off again might shift it back to normal preload with some careful whacks from a rubber hammer. All the ESA pump can do is empty out the hydraulic preload piston so if you avoid using a lump hammer it should be ok.
 
High mountain is the highest preload so winding it right off again might shift it back to normal preload with some careful whacks from a rubber hammer. All the ESA pump can do is empty out the hydraulic preload piston so if you avoid using a lump hammer it should be ok.

Thanks Bendy, I think it might have to wait until I get the motor responding to the switch again (if ever) as I have no idea whether I am raising or lowering the suspension when I apply power directly to it.

It would seem logical to me that, as the default position for preload is no or little preload, +ve battery to the red wire (pole 4) and earth to the brown wire (pole1 )would raise the suspension, so to lower it you would apply power the opposite way. :nenau
 


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