HEXHEAD Tech - R1200RT - Air Cleaner Access - All Years

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The articles, posts and comments in this tech section are posted by individual members and reflect their personal thoughts and experiences with repairing, maintaining, and generally working on motorcycles. This information may require specific knowledge and skills, may or may not be correct or current to model.

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This procedure outlines how to access your air cleaner on a R1200RT. Other models may be similar, or somewhat different. Some are much easier to get to (R1200R for instance.)

• The air cleaner is located behind an air intake tube "snorkle" that connects to the bike's air box.
• The snorkle is located on the right (throttle) side of the bike.
• For the RT you only need to remove throttle side plastic.
• This consists of the top fairing, glove box cover and bottom fairing
• Once the plastic is removed the snorkle is retained by two clips on the air box and a nipple on the snorkle connecting to a grommet on the frame.
• Remove the snorkle and you can pull out the air filter.

Tools needed: to access the filter all you need is a T-25 and a T27 Torx to remove the various bolts holding the plastic on and a small straight bladed screwdriver to facilitate unclipping the snorkle from the air box.

Let's begin with the plastic removal on the throttle side.

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Removing the top throttle side fairing plastic

Use a T-25 Torx and remove screw as shown

There will be a total of 4, this one shown, another down by the side next to the tank and two on the inside by the front wheel

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The one by the side near the tank

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Remove the two inside top fairing bolts - again T-25's

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Removal process ÔÇô stand facing the side panel, with left hand grasp the side towards the rear of the bike, with the other grab the front. Pull gently with your left hand towards you and at the same time push the panel to the front to clear the front of the bike. Check for the top black trim piece not to be hanging up on the dash panel.

The highlighted green area is where you grasp the rear of the panel, the higlighted yellow area is where you grasp the front of the panel

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Before removing the lower side panel - you need to remove the seat for access.

You can fully remove the seat or just pull the seat out of the way temporarily.

Depicted will be the removal of the seat - they are heated.

Unlock the lock below the luggage rack and pull up and out the passenger seat as shown, NOTE IF HEATED DON'T PULL ALL THE WAY OUT

The connector to remove is highlighted

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Press on the connector as shown to remove plug from body

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Gently pry cable holder off of seat rib, once removed you can take the rear seat off and lay the harness out of the way

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Now to remove the front seat heating connector - highlighted below - removed in a similar manner as was the rear.

Once removed set harness aside, remove the seat, and we can start on removing the side panel

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Side fairing removal:

To remove the side fairing we need to remove the Tank Bag Carrier

The bolts for the tank bag carrier are all T-25's, there are 4, two up by the steering head, the others are by the seat area

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The other 2 - once all 4 bolts are removed, set Tank Bag carrier aside.

Note the two wires seen on the lower left bolt are not stock, they belong to my gerbing and autocom

We can now proceed to the side panel

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There are two items to be cautious of when removing the throttle side lower fairing panel

1 - is the air temperature sensor, it is mounted in the front for 2008 and up models

2 - the glove compartment lid is secured by 2 short T-25 screws. It is CRITICAL that the short screws be put back in this position and longer ones can PUNCTURE the tank

Please be aware of these items

The Air Temp Sensor:

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Disconnect the sensor in the same way as the others shown previously.

You will note that the sensor harness is retained onto the fairing.

You can remove in two ways:

1 - pop clips of the fairing - potential paint damage

or

2 - pull out the sensor harness from it's captive restraint

I did it by number 2

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Remove the glove box hinge bolts - these are T-25's and are the short ones previously mentioned

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Glove box cover removed