Smiffypr
Registered user
Hello everyone.
The bike is a 2005 R1200GS with servo/ABS brakes. It has sat unused for a year. So the other day I got it out of the garage and gave it a wash and a quick check over then booked an MoT. Yesterday I went for the Mot and soon noticed that the brake failure light and red triangle were lit. The front brake worked fine, but the back brake hardly did anything and it failed the MoT on an inefficient back brake.
I searched the www and it seems to be common when these bikes have sat for a while and "everyone" said to bleed the brakes.
I started by bleeding from the rear calliper. what came out was dark brown, but the level in the reservoir didn't go down, so I looked more closely at the workshop manual (RepRom) and found that the fluid that I was getting out comes from an internal reservoir in the ABS unit.
So now I have topped up the then empty reservoir and bled everything until I got clean, bubble free fluid out of all four bleed points. I thought that I should also check the front brake fluid too. That came out clean, but I think I might have let the ABS reservoir get too low at one point so I bled the three points on the reservoir as well as the two front callipers.
Now, when I move off the warnings go off, but once I apply either brake any more than gently, the big red triangle and brake failure light up again and stay on until the ignition is turned off. Both brakes, and the ABS seem to be working, but I'm just testing up the back alley as the bike has no MoT or tax.
With the bike stationary, when I turn the ignition on I get the yellow triangle and "brake failure" as normal, but when I apply either brake hard the triangle turns red, but returns to yellow when the brake is released.
Can someone confirm if this is normal or does the triangle going red indicate that the problem is being detected at that point?
I'm hoping that letting the fluid "rest" overnight and a re-bleed tomorrow might fix it, but any other suggestions appreciated.
Smiffy
The bike is a 2005 R1200GS with servo/ABS brakes. It has sat unused for a year. So the other day I got it out of the garage and gave it a wash and a quick check over then booked an MoT. Yesterday I went for the Mot and soon noticed that the brake failure light and red triangle were lit. The front brake worked fine, but the back brake hardly did anything and it failed the MoT on an inefficient back brake.
I searched the www and it seems to be common when these bikes have sat for a while and "everyone" said to bleed the brakes.
I started by bleeding from the rear calliper. what came out was dark brown, but the level in the reservoir didn't go down, so I looked more closely at the workshop manual (RepRom) and found that the fluid that I was getting out comes from an internal reservoir in the ABS unit.
So now I have topped up the then empty reservoir and bled everything until I got clean, bubble free fluid out of all four bleed points. I thought that I should also check the front brake fluid too. That came out clean, but I think I might have let the ABS reservoir get too low at one point so I bled the three points on the reservoir as well as the two front callipers.
Now, when I move off the warnings go off, but once I apply either brake any more than gently, the big red triangle and brake failure light up again and stay on until the ignition is turned off. Both brakes, and the ABS seem to be working, but I'm just testing up the back alley as the bike has no MoT or tax.
With the bike stationary, when I turn the ignition on I get the yellow triangle and "brake failure" as normal, but when I apply either brake hard the triangle turns red, but returns to yellow when the brake is released.
Can someone confirm if this is normal or does the triangle going red indicate that the problem is being detected at that point?
I'm hoping that letting the fluid "rest" overnight and a re-bleed tomorrow might fix it, but any other suggestions appreciated.
Smiffy