Thanks to all that offered help. The problem turned out to be a known to BMW problem that they have chosen not to send out a alert to anyone on. It is the electric switch that turns the pump on and off. It seems if it gets wet it corrodes and will stop working. The fix is to replace it with a new one that the dealer in Mendoza did not have. They did know about the problem and how to by- pass the switch. I talked to Danial Novaco the sales manager I think he is. He spoke very good english so they took me direct to him. He was very confident that that was the problem and I have ridden it about 550 miles now and not a bit of probelm. It sure is great to be back on the road and know that the problem is not going to be back. I can not believe that BMW has known about this problem and has not had a recall on it. When you buy the best bike that you can that is supposed to be built for world travel and it has a $10 part that is known to stop the bike dead in the water I can not believe that they did not recall it. When it stopped it stopped dead and you could be killed by cars behind you. I am certainly going to be following up with them when I return to the USA as I spent $640 dollars getting the biked hauled 3 times and spent about 5 hours tearing the gas tank and fuel pump off and dumping the fuel 3 times to try to get it going out in the middle of no where. All three times that I had to get it hauled could have been life threatening because of the time and the area. I think I ended up hauling the bike close to 400 miles total. Oh well we live and learn. Again thanks for you help.

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Larry Davis

Ok .. your turn.
If you would be so kind - describe where this switch is, and how to bypass it. Just incase 'we' come across someone with the same problem?

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Regards Frank Warner
motorcycles BMW R80 G/S 1981, BMW K11LT 1993, BMW K75 G/S

Larry,
I have heard about this problem a few times: it is commonly discussed within the BMW owning/riding fraternity in the UK.
IIRC, it is an issue with the item collecting water on the top of the unit in question: water "ponds" there i.e. it does not drain away, leading to corrosion.
I recall various 1200GS owners having this fail and getting it replaced under warranty cover - yours' has the 3 year USA cover I presume - in the UK the warranty is for just 2 years, but the unit has failed well inside this time.

I have also been told that the unit has been re-designed in some way to keep the top dry: I don't know any detail - I wasn't listening to all of the moans and groans of the 1200 guys!!

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Dave

Well The unit I think is the part on the left side of the gas tank on top. The piece is held on by two small screws and I can see where water would pond on top of that unit as there is no way for water to get out of it. If you build a depression on top of the tank you should not need a engineering degree to know that it will get wet. As far as how they by pass it I do not know as I do not speak Spanish and did not get to talk to the mechanic. The service writer that I talked when I checked the bike in went back and asked the guy and then we went back to the sales office and talked to Danial who told me in english but he did not know just how they bypassed it. I am sure this problem has come up in BMW forums as it is a engineering mistake that they should have fixed long before they stranded me out in the middle of no where. We had pulled this unit off but it just had the electrical connection down below that attaches right to the fuel pump. We checked the connection and it was prefect as the sending unit is like a sealed unit. Sorry I could not tell you more from South America with limited email connections. Larry

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Larry Davis

Larry,

I think this will be the culprit, from what you have said:-
Fuel pump controller workaround - ::. UKGS'er.com .::
(There are lots of big pics in this link, just in case you have a slow connection).

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Dave