1200GS ABS reluctant to initialise

[bwallis42]

I have a 2005 R1200GS. It currently has 190,000 kms on it. Brake fluid was changed and ran the bleed test 18 months/30,000 kms ago.

Recently it has occasionally been reluctant to initialise the ABS (and hence only has residual braking). Turning the ignition off and on a couple of times after operating the foot and hand brake levers seems to kick it into action.

On checking for fault codes I found these

37641: Electrical System (KL30) under-voltage
37642: Implausible Photocell voltage
41708: Hand Brake Switch

None of which were currently present. I've seen all of these previously (couple of months earlier) but hadn't had the ABS initialisation problem those times so I'm not sure they are relevant. Not really sure what they mean (well, under voltage is obvious).

The battery is a 2 year old Motobatt and gets a charge every other weekend. The bike is ridden most days of the week, I usually do about 10 hours/500 kms a week. I don't have starting problems so I think the battery is still good (I've seen the under-voltage error code even when the battery was new).

So, I'm a bit baffled about what to do. Ignore the problem and hope it goes away? :-)

I will do an abs fluid change next service, it is about time. Anything else I should consider doing?

thanks.

[bwallis42]

This evening the ABS decided it didn't want to initialise. Riding on the residual braking is not a lot of fun.

After some fiddling (operating foot and hand brake) and ignition off and on a couple of times it initialised but on the first activation the servos stay on as does the brake light.

One fault in Vehicle Electrics shown, Hand Brake Switch, not currently present. After clearing the fault it hasn't returned but the brakes are still not initialising reliably.

We have had a couple of days of heavy rain and I have been riding in it so I suspect water in the handbrake switch.

Does this sound likely?

[bwallis42]

Cleaning and adjusting the micro switch on the hand lever seems to have fixed the problem for now.