good afternoon. Happy mothers day to all the moms out there.

it has been a while since my last post. Sorry. 
lets say i am glad to see the last year behind me.

anyway
owner of an 85 bmw k100 rs stock.
95000 k on the odometer.

out for the first ride of the season last weekend and all is smooth
wanted to ride just 35 k to warm up the old girl after almost 2 years of neglect.  
Ended up all all day on the black top and burnt more than a tank of fuel
anyway
a few days later i thought beautiful day for a ride to the office
turn on the switch and pressed the starter -forgot to add the manual choke.
everything off and open the choke. back on with the key and starter
nothing on the start. notta zero
in-fact the display was black- no noise. a few minutes later with the key in the on position the display lights go from black to dim back to black - pulsing between dim and off.
Weirdest thing, it also sounded like the fuel pump also engaged.
anyway.
I believe the start on the trouble shooting would be with the battery.
i am all thumbs with this kind of stuff
first how to remove the battery are there any step by step type instructions (i do have a manual)
and 
secondly what is the best way to check to see if the battery is toast before i either purchase a new one or dive into more trouble shooting. BTW what is a suitable replacement battery. make model for my bike. (pc680?)
as an aside i did have a trickle charged on over the winter and after my day of riding i plugged the battery trickle charge in again (may have been a mistake)
lastly on a un-related note, if i wanted to post pictures or mini videos to attach to future posts how does one go about this?  is it straight forward.  again step by step.  I am sort of a non-handy man and a non computer geek. wanting to learn though.
ultimately i am wanting to perform more and more of my own maintenance and pictures tell a thousand words.

thanks from toronto canada

Sounds like a loose battery connection or similar to me, not the abttery itself. Could also be the ignition switch or kill switch. Check your battery connections, fuses (not for being blown, but for loose or dirty connections). Try turning the ignition swich on an off a few times to see if its a dirty connection there etc, etc.

It sure sounds like a bad connection or possibly more than one.
As Rockman says check the ignition switch, it's a good starting point and under the tank there are heaps of connectors that often are corroded and require careful cleaning. Many of the guys here use Deoxit to clean the contacts and connectors.
You can get DeoxIt here http://www.allelectronics.com/make-a-store/item/d5s-6/deoxit-r-contact-cleaner/rejuvenator/1.html

Sounds like your ignition switch.  Your kilometerage is nearly the same as on my K75.  My problems were No power on turn on, low voltage(causing an ABS fault), and worst of all, power dropping out while riding.

Wiggling the key seemed to make the problem go away, which was a good thing when power dropped out at 80mph on the interstate.  Following some instruction posted here on ignition switch service I was able to disassemble the switch and find there were shallow grooves worn into the moveable contact that intermittantly prevented good electrical connection for power to the electrical system.

The fix was pretty easy.  Cleaned the fixed contacts with DeOxit and did a rub of the moveable contact on some 800 grit paper to remove the grooves.  The switch has worked flawlessly now for well over 600 miles over the course of the past 10 days of daily use.  

http://www.eilenberger.net/K75S/IgnitionSwitch/

The dark lines at 9 and 3 o'clock positions are the very shallow grooves that were causing my problem.  Lightly sanding the face of the movable contact removed them and so far, has cured the problem.  You can see that I had very little dirt or corrosion in the switch.

So 
removed the battery 7 years old.  can`t ask for much more than that.
took reading (10 v dc)
placed battery on battery charger slow charge 2A
charged up 
took battery to a local shop where they could load test
the shop handles trucks and cars.
battery failed the load test,
long weekend arrived (victoria day long weekend aka may 2-4)
bought a replacement battery 
prepped and changed.
installed tonight and voila.
back on the road.
hoping the old battery was the issues.

thanks Point-Seven-five.
The cleaning tip on the key ignition is awesome
i have copied the link as i feel as though this might come in useful sometime soon.
will keep you posted.
now if only i could figure out how to properly post pics.
my daughter will be home from university soon. she`ll sort me out.

thanks again.

cracked canoe.

Good result. Glad to hear its back on the road. Just out of interest.... what battery did you get?

Cheers

so
the battery that was originally in the bike when i purchased it a few years ago was an interstate FAYIX30L
sealed unit
the one I purchased as a direct replacement (size fit and function) was a yuasa model YIX30L

works perfectly so far.  time will tell.

however today my back brake failed.
will be posting on the mechanical part of this forum shortly.

cracked canoe.

Good to see you....

Back brake on both my Ks went, needed master cylinder rebuild and also a caliper strip. If you are doing a caliper strip as in find that's your problem go the whole way and do the master cylinder rebuild as well. My experience was that the master cylinder will fail shortly after due to the bleeding effort...

My son is due round later...his VFR800 is parked beside my K and he wants to go for a ride....love it.

yuasa is a highly recommended and respected brand out here, for people in the know

they make batteries for many high name - profile company's  "century " and many others (rebranded of course )

good luck  and ride well

Specs look good.
I just bought a MotoBatt MBTX30U AGM
If you're in Oz.... Very good price. Very good sevice. Free delivery. http://www.batterybusiness.com.au/

92KK 84WW Olaf wrote:....
My son is due round later...his VFR800 is parked beside my K and he wants to go for a ride....love it.

Cool