05 R1200RT ABS/Servo Problems & Removal

[promptcritical]

My 05 1200RT has started having brake servo problems. The first time was in rush hour traffic in San Francisco. The brake warning started flashing and the rear brake pedal was extremely hard, but the front brakes seemed to work fine. I was able to get to a safe spot and after turning off the bike and restarting it the fault cleared. All was well for about 15 miles and it did it again. A second restart cleared the problem and I made it home. GS-911 shows a "high-pressure" fault.

On my last ride, this occurred several times, sometimes with the rear brakes and sometimes with both brakes. I'm now more than a little concerned about my safety.......

It seems like my options are either have the dealer fix it, which aside from the hassle of an intermittent problem, looks like it will cost ~$3K or more (the nice weather makes everything cost more in CA), or remove the system.

I've spent a fair amount of time searching for information on removing the system and it looks pretty easy on a non-CANBUS bike, but I haven't found anything for a CANBUS bike.

Can anyone help me out with a procedure? (Any chance just re-routing the hydraulics to bypass the ABS system would work, although causing alarms?)

Thanks, Mike

 

[chiba]

As you've surmised, you can bypass the ABS unit fairly easily. An unfortunately too-common workaround for these systems, as nobody I'm aware of currently rebuilds that generation ABS unit. You'll "only" have regular brakes & a permanent ABS fault, but you'll save a ton of money.

I'm currently waiting for the ABS unit on my '05 GS to fail. I'll definitely do the bypass when the time comes instead of replacing the unit.

You can Google it and find threads & videos, here's one for you - http://advrider.com/index.php?threads/can-you-remove-servo-abs-from-12gs.142369/