Brake Bleeding on the F800 with ABS

Inspired by CycleRob, this section is devoted to all flavors of the F800.

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riceburner
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Brake Bleeding on the F800 with ABS

Post by riceburner »

First foray into this part of the forum for me...

My brother has bought himself an F800S (it's rather nice actually), but he's recently been complaining that the back brake has very long travel and is very spongey. Obviously needs bleeding, but how easy is that job with the ABS fixtures?

I'm very used to bleeding up non-abs brakes, but my only "knowledge" of ABS systems concerns those fitted to the R1150 Series bikes (aka R259 oilheads). On these there's multiple ABS circuits, all of which have to be bled (as I understand it), and it seems to be massively complex an undertaking.

Are the "new" ABS units on the F800s the same? I know the ABS units have been upgraded massively in recent years - but they still work the same way, with multiple circuits etc? Or are they much simplified? Do they still have servo motors to increase the braking "power"? (I think this is where the multiple circuits on the old systems come in).

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
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Re: Brake Bleeding on the F800 with ABS

Post by sweatmark »

Thankfully, the F800 ABS is conventionally non-servo, and easy to work with. There are separate front and rear circuits, of course. I have done a conventional brake fluid change and bleed on my wife's F800S, nothing tricky about it. Thought I might need to cycle the ABS unit using the GS911, but seems you can just push (or pull) old fluid through each circuit like non-ABS brakes.
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Re: Brake Bleeding on the F800 with ABS

Post by rich1kim »

I just did mine. No difference if you are just pushing fluid through. The procedure was just like a non abs brake flush.

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Re: Brake Bleeding on the F800 with ABS

Post by CycleRob »

Brake bleeding and therefore fluid change on an ABS bike being the same regular bleeding operation as on a Non-ABS bike is really unusual. I would more easily believe that BMW would make it a dealer only serviceable unit, yet the opposite is true. The newer generation ABS was also a much cheaper F800 option than the older OilHead servo system when I special ordered my Non-ABS F800ST in the spring of 2009. I believe the R1200R only came with that same newer generation ABS, so it was built into the higher MSRP.

ABS has been standard equipment on all street BMWs for a few years now and I have to say I would welcome the newer, simplier, smaller, lighter, easily serviced, more advanced ABS when I decide to get a newer BMW twin some 8+ years from now.
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