20 Most Recent 2008 BMW R 1200 RT Questions & Answers

ABS - Anti-Lock Braking System And EBD -Electronic Brake-force Distribution In Plain English Posted by: Rohit Khurana March 1, 2010 in Automobile Technology AdvertisementCarBlogIndia Technology Articles , today I will talk of one of the most talked about safety feature called the ABS And EBD. Again I will try to keep the language simple and human understandable (which non-engineers can also make some sense of), pun intended. What Is ABS ? Anti-Lock braking System system or ABS is a safety system which prevents the wheels on a moving vehicle from locking up(or cease while rotating) while braking. ABS offers improved vehicle control over dry and especially slippery surfaces by reducing the braking distance but it can also increase the braking distance in case of loose surfaces like snow, gravel etc. Ever since the invention of ABS, it has been evolving and the recent systems not only prevent wheel locking but also electronically control the front-to-rear brake bias, which we know as Electronic brake force system, Traction control system, Emergency brake assist or Electronic stability control. Working Of ABS Advertisement When brakes are applied under heavy loads, the braking pressure becomes high resulting in heavy braking or in other words locking up of wheels. The ABS overcomes this by monitoring the wheel speed and releases pressure on each wheel brake lines in the form of rapid pulses switching between different brake lines. which prevent locking-up. Preventing lock-up under heavy braking helps the driver in maintaining control over the vehicle. In modern ABS an individual brake line is provided for each of the four wheel enabling different braking pressures for different road surfaces of the wheels. What Is EBD ? Electronic brake- force distribution system also called as Electronic brake-force limitation is an automobile brake technology that automatically varies the amount of force applied to each of a vehicle's brakes, based on road conditions, speed, loading, etc. EBD system is always coupled with anti-lock brake-force system. The most important function of EBD is to maintain vehicular control with variation in braking pressure applied to each wheel in order to maximize stopping power. Generally most of the weight of all vehicles is carried by the front end so the EBD ensures less braking pressure at the rear end to avoid skidding. But in some EBD's the distribution of braking pressure at the rear end is more initially when the brakes are applied before the effects of weight transfer comes into play. Working of EBD system An EBD is a subsystem of the abs and its function is to control the effective adhesion utilization by the rear wheels. this definition has been given by SAE in its technical paper no. #920646. Advertisement The Antilock brake force system releases pressure in different brake lines at the time of heavy braking to prevent locking-up. The action comes in the form of releasing pressure from the braking circuit when it detects extreme and rapid deceleration in any of the four wheels in order to make sure that the driver maintains control over the steering during panic or emergency braking. For example if the wheels of a vehicle are on snow as well as asphalt then in case of emergency braking the ABS will monitor the speeds and eventually the EBD system will release less pressure for wheels on snow and more pressure for wheels on asphalt to prevent wheel lock-up

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Manifold to Cylinder head (acorn nuts) tighten to 21 Nm or 15.5 Lb/Ft

I have same model. The boxer engines do use oil and the levels need to be checked regularly. The sight glass at the bottom left hand side of the engine is for oil and the oil needs to be in the red ring. FYI my bike uses about 250ml of oil every 2000 miles or so. I always keep a bottle of Castrol Power in the garage! Somewhat perversely the oil consumption reduces as mileage increases. Plenty of infromation about this on the Internet!

You fine tune the headlight adjustment using the hex-shaped knob in the center of the headlight cluster. It moves the relationship between the filament and reflector, to essentially focus the beam.
Right to left is not normally adjustable, but shadows are normal for high beam. The best solution is probably HID replacements. Either bulbs or whole units.
http://www.jimvonbaden.com/R1200GS_HID_Install.html

First of all remove the spark plugs and check, if dirty clean the plugs and set the gaps. Now crank to flush out any overflow in the cylinder. replace the plugs.
Check the fuel filter and the fuel lines. check to see if there is any restriction of fuel flow to the cylinder. Replace fuel if the fuel was dirty and clean the tank.
Now crank with the spark plug to see the intensity of the spark. if Ok replace the plug and crank.
If there is not ignition check and reset the spark timing.

The ABS sensor gap is non adjustable on the newer BMWs like the R1200RT.

First, you did read your owners manual right? The manual lists the BMW approved oils for your bike. It is also important to use the correct quantity of oil in the engine, this is listed in the manual too.

I use Castrol Syntec 20-50 for the engine and synthetic gear oil (90 weight) for the trans and final drive.

There are no fuses on the R1200RT. All electrical loads are controlled by a module called the ZFE or central body computer.


There is a plug-in on the main wire harness for a GPS and you can order an inexpensive repair plug from a BMW dealer to plug into it. The connector on the harness is tied off just below the ignition key/lock and has a small cover on it. This harness connector has 3 wires..... 12V switched, ground and a speed sensor pulse for a BMW GPS (don't need to use this pulse wire tho). Here is a pix. of the harness, but I can't seem to find the part number for it right now.

On the 1200 RT Twin Spark, it means 2 plugs per cylinder. In other words 4 plugs total.
The term is often somewhat abused whereas "wasted spark" (plug firing on every stroke) is also referred to as twin spark. BMW uses this setup as well to save on components.