DIY: Charcoal Canister Removal on F800GS (with pictures!!)

There are a couple of DIY's on how to remove the charcoal canister from the F800GS but they don't have pictures. So here's how I did it.

The charcoal canister has three hoses coming out of it, two on top and one from the bottom. One from the top goes to the gas tank vent valve, the other goes to a breather valve. The hose coming from the bottom is routed to the bottom of the motorcycle. To make it more clear, I made up the following diagram:<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o></o>

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Tools and supplies needed:<o></o>
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Torx T25<o></o>
Torx T30<o></o>
Snips<o></o>
Needle nose pliers<o></o>
5/16&#8221; vacuum hose plug<o></o>
5/16&#8221; Uni Filter crankcase filter

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First remove the countershaft sprocket cover via the three T25 torx screws.

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Remove the two small triangular side panels via the one T25 screw and then slide the panels off the two prongs. Don&#8217;t lose the rubber grommets.
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Remove the rectifier via the two T30 screws being careful not to lose the two spacer washers which are between the rectifier and its mount. The remove the mount via its two T30 screws.<o></o>
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Snip the two big cable ties holding the canister onto the frame and slide the canister holder as far off to the side as you can. At this point I was able to remove the bottom line off the canister and one of the top lines.<o></o>
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Then snip this cable tie and move the wires out of the way.<o></o>

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Snip the cable tie which is holding the two wires to the canister bracket and move them aside.<o></o>
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You can then move the canister down, pull off the last line from the top of the canister and work the canister out through the countershaft sprocket area. It is tight but you can work it out.

Once the canister is out you'll have three hoses:


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Reach through the frame and pull the hose off the breather valve that came from the canister. Then put the 5/16&#8221; plug over the bung. (I forgot to take a picture of this.)<o></o>
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Then put the Uni Filter on the line that goes to tank. I then zip-tied the filter up out of the way so that it will stay as high as possible and out of any water&#8217;s way. (This is not where I left it. I just took a picture before I tucked it up out of the way.)
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Then zip tie the two wires that were attached to the canister bracket to the frame with a cable-tie like so:



Then discard the line that goes to the ground, put all the panels back in place and go for a test ride.

In all, it took about an hour, but without stopping to take pictures this could easily be done in a half hour or 45 minutes.

Please let me know if you have any questions, need anything clarified or can't figure out what the hell I'm talking about.

You are so going to smog hell mister.

Dude, I was so there years ago. :dog

When San Diego looks like Los Angeles, it will be because of you.

On a serious note, don't lose that sucker (canister). You'll be needing it every now and then soon enough.

I keep everything I take off my bikes so that I can restore them to stock when I sell them.

Is that because you should put it back on before going to the dealer for warranty items?... or why?...

What exactly would the benefit of removing this charcoal canister be?

No, he thinks that California is going to begin doing smog checks on motorcycles. I don't want this thread to turn into a debate on that subject.

Short version, if fuel gets in there, whether due to an overfill of the tank or a tip over on the trail, the bike will run like crap until the gas evaporates or worse, it can cause vapor lock in engine. Since I intend to ride off road a lot, which means falling over a bit, I do not want it there.

Nice job man. Good pictorial. My bike wouldn't run without stalling, took the canister out and have not had an issue since.

It was at the dealer for 2 weeks and they said they fixed it by resetting the computer. No dice. I did the mod myself and boo-ya!! fixed!

One guy posted that his F8 was having problems and the dealer undid one line to cap it. That leaves the canister inplace to then put the line back on when the Kali enviro Nazis (sorry could not help myself) demand inspections. Any idea which line that was?

I am dim enough to lose the canister (or my bride will throw it away) and certainly dumb enough to forget where stuff goes. Plus the less obvious tampering means a higher chance of the tech not dinging you during the visual.

From what I read before doing this, it would be the line from the canister to the fuel tank breather valve. You could access it through the triangular cover on the left side of the bike easily enough.

Do you reckon if you were:
1. Lazy,
2. Unfussed about extra few grams weight.
3. Ultra paranoid about wanting to put it "back to stock" very quickly/easily.

You could achieve the same by just 'clamping' the line to the fuel tank breather valve using a cable tie (and reverse it by cutting it off)?

If I understand the system corectly, I don't think that would work ...
(Again if I have this down): There is a check-valve in the system that is supposed to vent any vacuum condition in the tank but allow pressure to build up to ~4.5psi (maybe 1.5psi) pressure and approx. 1.0 psi of vacuum. This is in addition to the tip-over valve that "seals" the tank if the bike tips over to prevent fuel spilling out and causing a hazardous situation.

I have been unable to find a hose diagram for non-USA bikes, but I beleive they are equipted with just the tip-over valve, the tube from from there simply being vented to the atmosphere. Thus, with the bike upright the tank is always at same pressure inside as out. USA bike tanks on the other hand can pressure cycle from +1.5psi / +4.5psi (not sure which) to negative 1.x psi. It is my unfounded suspision that that this pressure cycling contributes to the cracking of the tank. I think the design needs improvement, but the pressure cycling seriously exacerbates the problem ... blah...blah...blah.

Anyway... I think what you would want to do is disconnect the line coming out of the tank just AFTER the tip-over valve and vent it to atmosphere (maybe a hose extension and filter there...
My thoughts only ... don't do anything on my opinion ...

No, you would not want to clamp or restrict air flow in or out of the fuel tank via the breather valve. The fuel system uses this valve to be able to maintain the correct pressure within the tank and fuel system. If you were to clamp or restrict this valve, you would effectively be re-creating the "charcoal canister recall problem" without the charcoal canister in line.

Is it really better or are we just sticking it to the man?

That's a matter of opinion. I could not care less about sticking it to the man, I like sticking it to women.


That said, the US is the only place in the world that has the charcol canisters and we're also the only place that has tanks cracking. Coincidence? I also wanted to free up that space for something that actually does something . . .

It's only better if you're having runnability problems. If your bike runs fine and you haven't had any problems then there's really no need to remove the charcoal canister. Do you have a 2011 F800GS? I would be willing to bet that the charcoal canister recall work has already been done on your bike if it is a late 2010 or 2011, making it even more pointless to remove the charcoal canister.

Remember, it does serve a purpose. Even though there are countries that don't require them, we do here in the USA due to our EPA laws. It's purpose is to keep purged fuel liquid and vapors that exit from the gas tank vent line from evaporating into the atmosphere. A little known fact is that evaporating gasoline fumes/gases are in effect many many times worse for our atmosphere and the creatures that live within it than even exhaust gases. This is why it is so important to the EPA lately for all internal combustion vehicles to have a charcoal canister system.
It captures fuel vapors and prevents them from escaping to the atmosphere and then stores the fumes and recycles them to the fuel tank or engine intake for combustion as needed. The long and short of it is that it helps to protect the environment and improve fuel economy.


All that said, in the first 2 years or so of production on the USA F800GS and F650GS2's, BMW pretty much screwed up the routing on the hoses, so that if you rode through rain or standing water, the system would suck water up into the charcoal canister. This in turn would clog air/vapor flow through the charcoal canister, wreaking havoc on the very finely tuned pressurized fuel delivery system on this bike, causing stalling and runnability issues. However, BMW finally recognized their error and sent out recall notices and bulletins to check all hose routing for charcoal canisters.

Here's how BMW originally designed it:

Red is outside air flow and blue is fuel vapor flow:




Then, in a recall bulletin, here's how they've fixed the issue:

Adding a Y-fitting, they added a line to the ground vent hose that goes up high into the bike, so that when the engine/throttle bodies are sucking in fuel vapors from the canister to be burned off they don't also suck in water from the ground or from rain:

Ta for clearing that up for me.

No prob. Glad I could help. Also, if I'm not mistaken, the fuel tank breather valve in the diagram that Yeti made is actually to the left of the charcoal canister, in line on the fuel tank vent hose before it goes into the charcoal canister.

There are actually three valves I think...
The one in the picture is a solenoid valve controlled by the computer.
The system is not passing air into the intake all of the time, but only on command from the computer (bike is warmed up, and ... not sure what else...?)

On the tank side is a tip-over valve and the pressure-vacuum valve, but I am not sure of how the hoses are routed to the valves on the tank side...