You won't see this in any Haynes manual but this is how not to reinstall a battery in an FJR.

1. Decide as its not a bad day to put battery back in bike after it being connected to Optimate to get charged for last week.
2. Spend 5 minutes looking for keys for bike shed as they aren't where you left them (which is a bit odd when you live on your own).
3. Spend 2 minutes coaxing locks open with WD40 having found keys where you left them under a magazine.
4. Push bike out of shed and put on centre stand.
5. Disconnect battery from Optimate.
6. Remove upper dash panel which covers battery tray placing fasteners in left pocket for safe keeping.
7. Install put battery in battery tray and go to shed to look for bolt that hold battery strap, inner panel and lower dash panel which you didn't bother to install again after removing battery (a time saver!)
8. Connect battery and test everything working (ha not so daft as to put it all together first).
9. Install battery strap with bolt then realise inner panel should be under battery strap so remove battery strap.
10. Install inner panel and reinstal battery strap but drop bolt.
11. Search drive for bolt and fail to find it. Move bike backwards and forwards to make sure not under wheels.
12. Rock bike side to side in hope bolt will fall from wherever it is lodged.
13. Undo bolts at front of tank and start to raise tank, then remember side panels need to be removed to raise tank.
14 Remove side panels and raise tank, no sign of bolt.
15. Remove inner panel and battery to see if trapped in battery tray.
16. Start tapping things to see if bolt will appear.
17. Hear rattling sound coming from plastic thing that appears to serve no purpose whatsoever other than to catch and hide bolts that have been dropped.
18. Walk round to left side of bike to find bolt on top of plastic thing.
19. Install battery, inner panel and battery strap taking great care noto to drop bolt again.
20. Start to fit upper dash panel and dislodge threaded clip into fairing.
21. Find magnetic probe to retrieve clip.
22. Find magnetic probe cannot reach clip.
23. Rock bike in hope clip will fall out of fairing.
24. Realise fairing is going to have to come off to get clip out.
25. Start to remove fairing fasteners putting them in pocket for safe keeping.
26. Remove nuts that hold mirror on from inside fairing, drop second nut inside fairing.
27. Get blanket from car and spread on drive next to bike. This stops frost bite in posterior whislt removing last of fasteners and means if the fairing falls or missing nut or clip fall out will be easier to see.
28. Remove crash protector.
29. Remove lower fairing whilst listening for falling nut and clip which of course you won't here because of blanket
30. Place fairing on grass next to drive so you don't stand on it whislt poking around in upper fairing looking for nut and clip.
31. No sign of either in upper fairing so search blanket.
32. No sign on blanket so lift up lower fairing and search nooks and crannies.
33. No sign in lower fairing so put back on grass and see nut and clip on grass having fallen out of fairing when you first put it down.
34. Put nut on mirror bolt for safe keeping.
35. Replace lower fairing, crash protector and all fasteners and think I should have put the battery back first just in case.
36. Replace battery, inner panel, battery strap, mirror, clip and upper panel without further incident.
37. Go to pocket for fasteners for lower panel to find there are none left.
38. Search drive, blanket and grass for missing fasteners then remember time saving idea of not reinstalling lower panel so go to shed to find fasteners safe on shelf.
39. Reinstall lower panel and fasteners.
40. Reinstall bolts for tank and side panels.
41. Reinstall seat.
42. Remove seat to put tool kit back under seat.
43. Reinstall seat.
44. Push bike back into shed and think about getting some petrol to put in it tomorrow as you are now cold, hungry and totally pissed off.


Next year there shouldn't be such a palaver. It should go something like this.

1. Call electrician to install outside power supply to shed.
2. Plug in optimate and connect to battery via socket in upper panel you installed last year.
3. Forget until you want to ride.

at least you finished before it got dark..

your 1st mistake was step 1 Ian (or not realising the "lost" keys was a sign)
i did wonder why you had to take the battery off ,but all was explained later. you would have been better off buying a few lengths of overflow pipe & an extension cable & burying it b4 the cold weather

so it's not just me that does these things then pheww

Ha Ha ha!!!!!!

Me-I've just got to do something on the bike.

Missus D- How long will it take?

Me-Shouldn't be more than half an hour.

Missus D- So I guess we're not going out today?

Mrs FF has learnt that "I'm just going for an hour in the garage" actually means "would you bring me a coffee in 3 hours please?"

see it's not just me