FZ6 (MF) Battery

Hello Everyone, I just bought my first bike and I have never ridden before. I have noticed my battery seems to keep dieing on me. Now I can't yet drive, I did get insurance today, and Tuesday I am going to try for my permit. So really all I have been doing is sitting on it cutting it off and on and studying my bike & manual. I am guessing the cutting it off and on and not actually riding it is whats killing the battery. I spoke with some friends who have bikes and they believe the same. One said the bike will recharge the battery but I first have to actually be driving it around for it to charge. Can anyone confirm this if this is true or not about the charging the bike. My second question is doing some reading online at different sites and even my manual says I have to have a special charger to charge this battery once it dies. Is this true cause the manual even says a regular charger will damage the battery. Well my friends say they dont understand that cause they always charge there (MF) batteries with there same charges they use on there cars etc... I took a gamble and took the battery out of the bike and charged the battery at 2amps and it seemed to charge it fine and once I put the battery back in the bike it started fine. What do you guys think? Sry about the long request like I say Im completely new to all this and really appreciate this site and ppls knowledge and opinions. Also feel free to suggest anything or pass knowledge my way you want about this bike or even how it haddles etc...

You need to ride the bike a lot more and keep the revs up over 4000 to recharge the battery. This has been a big problem for a lot of members, week battery. Even brand new bikes off the showroom floor has been dyeing. It's just been sitting for too long. Unless you ride everyday, you should consider buying a battery tender. There are numerous threads on this forum regarding this topic. Just hit the search tab, and read up.

Just like what Vegasrider said, you need to keep the rpms up for the charging system to take affect.

jamesfz6 said:

Just like what Vegasrider said, you need to keep the rpms up for the charging system to take affect.

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Hey, put me on that list of I agree too.

yup agree and the reason you shouldnt use a car charger is you can actually cook they electolite in the battery and fry it. u have to remember the car charger is charging a bigger battery. the battery tender is the best you plug it in when u get home or done riding and it will monitor your battery. Dont get cheap on a charger the battery is much more expensive! A battery tender will acutally pay for itself if you use it all the time.

Okay thanks for the advice about the chargers and why not to use a regular charger. On my FZ6 I have to remove the seat and two bolts on the front of the tank to raise the tank up. Becareful cause then the gas tank hits the fairings on each side of the bike and then pushes the fairings out like its not meant to do. When i go to lay the tank back on the bike I have to again becareful cause it sits on the fairings and I have to work it back on the bike carefully. Is there something I'm missing? I'm going to reread the manual again to make sure I'm doing it right.

Usually the tender will come with a small harness that you can attach to the battery. Then you run the harness somewhere accessable so you don't have to 'take the bike apart' to get to the battery every time.

Hollow said:

Okay thanks for the advice about the chargers and why not to use a regular charger. On my FZ6 I have to remove the seat and two bolts on the front of the tank to raise the tank up. Becareful cause then the gas tank hits the fairings on each side of the bike and then pushes the fairings out like its not meant to do. When i go to lay the tank back on the bike I have to again becareful cause it sits on the fairings and I have to work it back on the bike carefully. Is there something I'm missing? I'm going to reread the manual again to make sure I'm doing it right.

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You can take off the inner fairings fairly easily, i would say that is the best bet to avoid damaging them.

I installed a battery tender harness to my battery. When I'm done ridding I just plug the unit into the bike. The harness is easy to install, your'e battery will always have a full charge and should last a long time.

Awesome thank you very much I understand now. I didnt know the tender had a harness that stays attached to the bike. That alone seems well worth the purchase of a tender makes it alot more simple to charge the bike. Very much appeciated. Also today one of my friends is taking me to a large vacant parking lot to practice riding. Thanks for the support and not being jerks just cause I'm new to this whole experience.

Well I got to ride in a nice size vacant parking lot Tuesday and stalled once but never dropped my bike. Anyhow I rode for 2hrs and then cut the bike off. Then I went to start again and it wouldn't start. I had to roll it off to get it to start. Then a friend also notice a rattling noise when the bike was in Nuetral. It sounded as if it was wanting to pop into 2nd gear. I called the tech and Friday wants me to bring it to him to fix the rattle and replace the battery.

HavBlue said:

Hey, put me on that list of I agree too.

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Same as..............

Welcome to the site. Good luck with your training.

Nelly

Hollow said:

Well I got to ride in a nice size vacant parking lot Tuesday and stalled once but never dropped my bike. Anyhow I rode for 2hrs and then cut the bike off. Then I went to start again and it wouldn't start. I had to roll it off to get it to start. Then a friend also notice a rattling noise when the bike was in Nuetral. It sounded as if it was wanting to pop into 2nd gear. I called the tech and Friday wants me to bring it to him to fix the rattle and replace the battery.

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The rattle is probably the clutch assembly, this is quite normal and stops once the clutch is pulled in.

NELLY

Hi I think I'm late for this since is almost September, but I bought my fz6 2 weeks ago, and the same happend to me, I think we are just to new and I feel weird when I go over 4000 rpm's, little by little, I took my bike to the yamaha dealer in North Charleston (I noticed you live in SC) and Dany the mechanic took sweet 40 minutes giving me advice, the battery tender is the first thing he sugested, since I am so new riding and he does not recomends to over accelerate just because of charging the battery.

Take care and hope you enjoy riding as much as I do

Just noticed how old this thread is, but oh well.

I've had the same issue w/ my battery for a long time. Accept after a full nights charge I can ride the bike all day and it be fine. Then on the 2nd day of riding after last charging it, if I ride just long enough to get it up to operating temp. and kill it it wont even have enough juice to turn over.

This happened to me on campus the other day and I had to push the bike up a hill just so I could bump start it. So I think I may just buy a new Yuasa battery because in my case the battery tender doesn't seem to solve my problem all the time.

Hollow said:

Okay thanks for the advice about the chargers and why not to use a regular charger. On my FZ6 I have to remove the seat and two bolts on the front of the tank to raise the tank up. Becareful cause then the gas tank hits the fairings on each side of the bike and then pushes the fairings out like its not meant to do. When i go to lay the tank back on the bike I have to again becareful cause it sits on the fairings and I have to work it back on the bike carefully. Is there something I'm missing? I'm going to reread the manual again to make sure I'm doing it right.

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I did a how-to on tank removel: http://www.600riders.com/forum/how-tos/12650-gas-fuel-tank-removal.html

It shows how to remove the tank safely, without removing the inner fairings.