Servo Storage

[sockpuppet]

Taking the servo on my 1150 out next weekend in preperation for taking the bike round Africa - it's not failed just don't want the hassle of it failing when I'm out there (or the weight!). Not a lot of work to change when I'm in the old mans garage.

Now I'm running extra wires for the rear/stop lights using the new switches that are for non servo bikes. I'm planning to keep the bike as standard as possible so if I sell it in the future I could (in theory) put the servo back in to make it an ABS bike again...who knows what I'll want to do in the future.

So what are the views on this...whats the best way to store the servo, with fluid in it or without - though that may risk a drying out of valves/seals inside.

I know its a long shot and that it'll probably feck itself immediatly upon removal but I like to humor it and make it think it could live again some day.

 

[Timolgra]

I've done the same as you and for the same reasons.
I've got mine wrapped in a bin liner.

 

[sproggy]

The older these bikes get the less any potential buyer is to want a servo with all the trouble (and expense) they can cause. Your bike would sell better without it*. I de-servo'd my bike a couple of months back and sold the servo for enough to pay the cost of the switches and other bits and pieces. Good ridance to it.

* Bike magazine this month recommends an 1150GS as a better used bike than a 1200, but advises against buying one with a servo.

 

[Stewart H]

plenty of newspaper and plastic ought to stop any deterioration until you decide what to do with it.
Stewart

 

[sockpuppet]

Thanks guys - I think I'll just leave a liberal amount of fluid in it then wrap it in plastic and try to keep it airtight as possible.

Doubt it will ever go in again but some buyer may want it untill it breaks then they already know the bike has the parts to run non servo! Either that or they could sell it - kind of why I've got the std cat and exhaust even though I'm keeping the remus on it.

 

[fundura]

Anyway,After riding it round the sub continent who would want to buy it anyway? I would be mostly fecked by then
Have a Gr8t trip

 

[davegs]

Servo

Find a big deep river walk onto a bridge over same and drop the bloody thing in and rejoice.
dave GS

 

[sockpuppet]

Find a big deep river walk onto a bridge over same and drop the bloody thing in and rejoice.
dave GS

Thanks for the replies guys.

 

[Myke Rocks]

best place ot keep a servo

on the bike!

 

[sockpuppet]

on the bike!

Well as the servo really only adds ABS which I'll have to turn off in Africa as I don't intend on keeping to the black stuff I'd have to disagree

There is also rumoured to be 6kg of weight saving.

 

[Timolgra]

on the bike!

It should never have been there in the first place

 

[Myke Rocks]

Only adds abs

Well as the servo really only adds ABS which I'll have to turn off in Africa as I don't intend on keeping to the black stuff I'd have to disagree

There is also rumoured to be 6kg of weight saving.

ONLY ADDS ABS! That is the understatement of the year.

Still, the 10kg now missing from the bike will be a great saving.

(5kg servo + 5kg brain = 10kg)

 

[Timolgra]

ONLY ADDS ABS! That is the understatement of the year.

Still, the 10kg now missing from the bike will be a great saving.

(5kg servo + 5kg brain = 10kg)

Broken servo = Broken ABS = no brakes.

No brakes in Africa = understatement of the decade

Oh and your servo WILL fail sooner or later

 

[Steptoe]

Look up your nearest storage unit company...................

 

[sockpuppet]

Look up your nearest storage unit company...................

I was just planning to whore a corner of my dads garage. He's already holding the cat, std exhaust, top box and a mountain of other crap for me.

A little more won't hurt even if he does protest its an invasion.

 

[Myke Rocks]

Broken servo = Broken ABS = no brakes.

No brakes in Africa = understatement of the decade

Oh and your servo WILL fail sooner or later

Sorry to be a pedant, but:

Item 1:
Faulty servo = heavier brakes, not no brakes.

Item 2.
Servo failures.
A gross overstatement. the pedant in me comes to the fore.
Some servos have failed. Not all will fail. It is very difficult to quantify the failure rate, which is not, as you suggest, 100%. Neither is it 0%. I know, mine has not failed. Therefore there is a failure rate, which a site such as this identifies as beng "large".

However, (in the immortal word of Kenny Mcasklill) People don't write to sites and say "My servo has not failed" They only write when they do fail, so it is fairly certain that the majority do not give trouble. If they did, BMW would have been forced into a recall.
(An aside - my fuel pump controller has failed - replaced it & it is one of the ones listed as failing on this site, so failures are accepted as happening.)
However, (Kenny McAskill again) That was not my comment.

My comment was on the loss of ABS.
Regardless of the safety implications, think deeply of the following scenario:

You have been in an accident, & your bike has been taken away for examination, which reveals you have removed the ABS system.
You are now being crossexamined in court:
"You removed the ABS system?" Yes I did.
Why? Because of a potential servo failure which would have increased my braking pressures.
Did you suffer such a failure? - No.
So you know more than the manufacturer?

This goes on and on.

I would rather stick my arm in a mincing machine than to be on the stand if such a line of questioning arose.

A Good Barrister would destoy you.
A bad one would ensure your going to jail.

Remember the man who is currently in jail because he modified the suspension of his Landrover (family drowned).

Myke

 

[Timolgra]

Sorry to be a pedant, but:

........

 

[Hubs]

Having had a steady stream of servo related issues with a couple of BM's (K1200S and 1150GSA), I am looking forward to the day when I can return my GSA to the simplicity and reliability of the non servo systems on earlier GS1150's. Having a braking system with unpredictable weighting at the lever and a consequential perceived lack of braking under some unpredictable circumstances is IMHO significantly worse than a regularly functioning system that allows the bike to stop in the same manner for tens of thousands of miles. In addition, I like to know what I have to do do stop a bike fast, and it is impossible to practice on a system where you might be reliant on a failsafe mode which you have never used before. Having struggled to stop from 30 mph on a regularly used road service, I sure as hell don't want it to fail at 85 on a dual carriageway when I need it to work. I'd rather be alive and having a discussion with a slick lawyer than dead with an intermittent and unpredictable fault. Nice concept when new, shite when older. Braking system faults are not under any circumstances failsafe - even diagonal braking systems in cars are going to need a pretty high degree of skill to be unscathed if one system fails. If brake systems fail, the outcome is down to skill, circumstance and luck Not to mention the underlying 'snatch' in low speed applications. At least its not Canban...Rant over, thanks for listening, off to the shed with a new brake switch and some spare fluid...

 

[sproggy]

Item 1:
Faulty servo = heavier brakes, not no brakes.

Have you ever experienced the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of what BMW call 'residual braking' and you call 'heavier brakes'? I suspect not - if you had you might have slightly less faith in your and other people's ability to stop a heavily laden bike using only residual braking. At least before hitting whatever it was that required the braking in the first place.

Item 2.
Servo failures.
A gross overstatement. the pedant in me comes to the fore.
Some servos have failed. Not all will fail. It is very difficult to quantify the failure rate, which is not, as you suggest, 100%. Neither is it 0%. I know, mine has not failed. Therefore there is a failure rate, which a site such as this identifies as beng "large".

But you are challenging this? It is a brake system failure, and it's not uncommon. It doesn't matter whether it affects 30% of bikes or 50% - the servo is a major component that is known to fail on occasion on a significant proportion of bikes. You say yours has not failed. What you actually mean is it has not failed yet. All manufactured assemblies have a finite life - in the case of servos some have a longer life than others, but they will all fail eventually. I would not want to be riding my bike when that happened, which is why I removed the servo.

However, (in the immortal word of Kenny Mcasklill) People don't write to sites and say "My servo has not failed" They only write when they do fail, so it is fairly certain that the majority do not give trouble.

How can you be certain that the majority do not give trouble? The previous owner of my bike didn't even know this site existed, yet his servo failed. Of course he didn't report it here. You are guessing.

If they did, BMW would have been forced into a recall.

Or, alternatively, BMW could have been forced to replace a great number of servos under warranty at great expense to themselves, eventually deciding that servos on bikes are an unnecessary complication and ceasing to fit them.........

My comment was on the loss of ABS.
Regardless of the safety implications, think deeply of the following scenario:

You have been in an accident, & your bike has been taken away for examination, which reveals you have removed the ABS system.
You are now being crossexamined in court:
"You removed the ABS system?" Yes I did.
Why? Because of a potential servo failure which would have increased my braking pressures.
Did you suffer such a failure? - No.
So you know more than the manufacturer?

My insurance company are aware that my bike is not fitted with ABS. Mechanically it is identical to a bike that came from the factory without ABS and is therefore just as safe as such a bike. It has passed an MoT test in which the effectiveness of the brakes was tested. When you have bought a bike new and had a choice over whether or not to have ABS would you expect an insurance company to find you liable for an accident because you chose not to have it? Of course not. As for knowing more than the manufacturer? Yes, we do. BMW certainly didn't know that a significant number of servos would fail. With the benefit of hindsight we do know that and, armed with that knowledge, we're able to each make a decision as to what we do with our servos.

I would rather stick my arm in a mincing machine than to be on the stand if such a line of questioning arose.

A Good Barrister would destoy you.
A bad one would ensure your going to jail.

Absolute rubbish. You have converted a motorcycle from one standard spec to another, simple as that.

Remember the man who is currently in jail because he modified the suspension of his Landrover (family drowned).

And that modified suspension was available from the factory fitted to the same model of Land Rover as a standard option, was it? No, it wasn't. It's a completely different situation. You are talking about converting a vehicle to a non-standard specification and we are talking about converting it to an alternative standard specification as you could have purchased it new.

 

[Steptoe]

Servo failures.
A gross overstatement. the pedant in me comes to the fore.
Some servos have failed. Not all will fail.

I see a large amount of failed units from lots of different models which aren't in the dealer network so if other independents see the same amount that means BMW haven't a sausage about the reliability of this part. They can't go by the amount of servos they sell as replacements because everyone that i've worked on has asked for it to be removed.

It's an electrical part. So one thing can be guarenteed. It will fail SUDDENLY at some point.