Hi all,
I have a couple of tips for the forum.
1. If you are changing the Fuel Filter or Air Filter replace the engine breather vacuum hose.
It may look ok but at the cost of thirty pounds you could save yourself a lot of money.
The BMW labour costs for doing this job is about three hundred pounds.
The symptoms of this hose splitting are a fast erratic tickover.
2. Apart from the SW of England BP Ultimate Petrol doesnt contain ethanol.

Hi Ron where's this vacuum hose that you mention, is it the one that runs along the top of the engine underneath the inlet stubs?

Cheers Bren

Yes thats the one.
Regards ron

Nor does ESSO Supreme

What has ethanol got to do with the hose ?

Ethanol is BAD. Rubber parts in most fuel systems (except for the latest engines designed to run on E85 ethanol fuels) do not fare well if in contact with ethanol, even the lower percentage forced on us. Lawn equipment is notorious for having carburetor and fuel line problems with ethanol fuels. Many of those companies have never decided to spend the money on newer materials to prevent it.

Older engines in cars, boats, and yes motorcycles, are having many problems because of ethanol.

Thanks.

I think BP Ultimate and other more expensive fuels are 98 octane. I always use 95 octane ones.

Presume the lower octane ones do not have added ethanol.

How easy is it to do this. I have often replaced the fuel and air filters which involved taking most of the parts off the bike that you would need to do to replace the breather. How much more work is involved beyond this.

You have to disconnect the intake tube clamps and remove the airbox, then it is not too hard to remove the breather tube assembly. There is the clamp on the right side that is a little fun to reach, more difficult to get back on, but other than that not a very difficult task.

The front two clamps on the throttle bodies are different from the rear two. The rear ones are screw clamps, the front ones are "snap" type. You can use needle nose pliers to twist the clamp halves sideways to disengage them, then use the pliers to compress them back on re-install.