Charging a Motobatt battery

[The Learner]

Hi all. I’m new to the motorcycle maintenance game. I bought my first bike, a Honda CB100, recently and it was sat a while before I got it. It’s been stalling a lot, and sometimes smoking out the exhaust. The neutral light also doesn’t always come on meaning I can’t start the bikes. First thing first - I’m going to recharge the battery then clean the carb. I got my charger today and took my seat off to charge it but have never seen this set up - a red and black cable connected to the terminals, with the black cable disappearing with other wires and the red has a piece that I assume should connect to my charger. My charger has two sets of cables, the regular types with clips and rings, and I can’t see how I can charge with either of these. For the record, this is a Motobatt Quadflex battery. Can anyone please offer advice?

[doggone]

You should be able to clip the red lead to the red (positive) terminal.
The Negative black can be attached to any bright surface if it's hard to get to the battery negative directly.
Be very wary of accidentally touching bare metal between the positive and frame (which will be connected to negative/earth).
You can get sparks, smoking hot wires, risk of fire and dead battery if they touch even briefly, from a direct short.

You might put on a photo if it looks unusual, could there be a permanently attached 'tender' wire which allows you to easily plug in a charger but you might not have the same connector style.
That's a good way to do it as bikes are best kept topped up through winter especially when you might go several days or weeks without going far enough to keep it charged up.

[arry]

Not sure from what you're describing but I'm thinking what you've got on there is an Optimate Tail lead coming off of there somewhere - one of these?
https://www.optimate.co.uk/products/o1-weatherproof-eyelet?category=SAE+Accessory+Leads

Either way, you should be able to remove the battery entirely from the bike if you want, and just connect your charger using the crocodile clips to the terminals. From memory that particular battery has 2 sets of terminals so you could find a couple of the small bolts and just connect your charger on the opposite side of the battery.

Some pics of what you're seeing along with details of your charger would be helpful

[The Learner]

Sorry both, thought I had added these images!
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Andy Walsh

[arry]

Crikey - that's been chopped about with a bit!

Can you take the black / red caps off? That should expose the terminals themselves - chances are under there you'll have those wires bolted into the top of the battery by the eyelet style connectors your charger has.

[wr6133]

It's a 6v I think all the motobatt 6v's have permanently attached wires like that, certainly the ones I've had/seen.

Just disconnect the bullets so you only have the first bit coming from each terminal, connect your clips to that and charge.... with charger set for 6v

[arry]

[Riejufixing]

I can't say that I like the look of the negative lead's first connection.

[Polarbear]

There's quite a bit of modified/replaced/bodged wiring there. All the red bullet conectors are replacements which I would want to check out.

What's the score with the lack of battery box? Have you any idea why he removed that? With my Boat Safety Certificate examiners hat on, that lashup of cable ties and plate the battery is on is not good.

Get a battery box off ebay or somewhere.
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Triumph Trophy Launch Edition

[The Learner]

Thanks all for your advice, really helpful! I’ll do as recommended and connect clips to the bullets and see how that goes, and look at getting a battery box.

The bloke I bought the bike from only had it since the start of the year, and did about 400 miles before getting a bigger bike. I don’t think he did any of the work himself and it was completely customised by a professional in 2014 - so I imagine between those two owners, someone did a bit of the work themselves. It wasn’t what I expected to see when I took the seat off so glad I’m not the only one!
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Andy Walsh

[arry]