Brake failure

[Chris Terry]

Out on my 05 12gs tonight when the brake leaver felt "soft" and appeared to to travel to the bar with little resistance. No (or very little) brake !. Stopped and switched off and left for an hour, restarted and rode home all seem well. When the problem occurred it seemed like there was air in the system. Has anyone got any ideas??

 

[st247]

Out on my 05 12gs tonight when the brake leaver felt "soft" and appeared to to travel to the bar with little resistance. No (or very little) brake !. Stopped and switched off and left for an hour, restarted and rode home all seem well. When the problem occurred it seemed like there was air in the system. Has anyone got any ideas??

Is it an ABS equipped bike

 

[badgerrrrrr]

if its servo assisted and the red traingle flashed then have the servo checked, had 2 servo's fail on one of mine with complete or little braking, over one rounderabout and one bush later got rid, lost or confidence in the brakes, some will say make sure the battery is 100% !!, but have not heard of servos failing on the 1200 mine was 1150gsa

 

[Chris Terry]

Yes it does have ABS and servos.

 

[nunesaf]

Out on my 05 12gs tonight when the brake leaver felt "soft" and appeared to to travel to the bar with little resistance. No (or very little) brake !. Stopped and switched off and left for an hour, restarted and rode home all seem well. When the problem occurred it seemed like there was air in the system. Has anyone got any ideas??

Surely you have air in the system. I had a hose split when leaving the ferry in Dover and drove up here to leatherhead. Boy... this is what a call an adventure .

There is only one thing to do: to check the hole system for leaks before you drive ot again

 

[st247]

Yes it does have ABS and servos.

Ok usual suspects would be the handguard holding the front brake lever on, the rear brake pedal stuck down, on the odd ocassion one of the centre stand mounts has broken causing the stand to interfer with the brake pedal.

Some more info here

 

[Deleted account 210609001]

If it went OK after you stopped and restarted, I doubt it is something as simple as air in the system or a leak. It sounds exactly as I would describe the servos not working - lever moves much further and effort needed to get any braking is massively increased.

It could be an electronic fault in the system, or it could be something simple like not being able to go through pre-start checks because the brakes were applied (either by you or by something catching a lever). However, this should have made the "brake failure" warning light flash and you haven't mentioned that.

A dealer should be able to hook it up to the diagnostic thing. Probably worth getting it checked out - don't want to find yourself without brakes just when you need them.

 

[Chris Terry]

Thanks guys !, I'll get CW to connect it to the "orak" ££££££££.

 

[peterh]

CW may recognise the symptoms as I took my 05 1200 back to them with the same issue.

It happened just the once, pulling away from a petrol station. Felt just like a total hydraulics failure, ie very little resistance on the brake lever, ditto braking response . Stopped the bike, restarted it, all OK. Went home slowly testing the brakes frequently.

CW saw me very quickly. Computer said all ok. That was 5k miles ago and no recurrence. Passed pressure test check at 18k service with flying colours.

 

[Chris Terry]

Took the bike to CW's for the "full" brake check it passed all the computer checks. There is still a slight problem, very light pressure on the brake leaver over 30 seconds or more and the leaver slowly pulls back to the bar. If released and pulled again .. rock solid as it should be. Anything more than a very light touch and all is well. oh yes and this is the same servos turned on or off.
I was told at CW's "we have notice this on some bikes....not a problem".
I am thinking master cylinder seals ??