FJRiders.com

gixxerjasen wrote: ↑Sun Sep 27, 2020 7:01 pm Any chance this is something that was laying in the road that was tossed up by the car in front of you and landed somewhere in the bike?

Enxss wrote: ↑Sun Sep 27, 2020 9:25 pm But I must admit that I have no recollection of removing it from the bike. That's the frustrating bit.

raYzerman wrote: ↑Sun Sep 27, 2020 9:40 pm I don't recognize the part either... it looks like it could be a headlight vent... should be one on each side if that's the case.

Enxss wrote: ↑Sun Sep 27, 2020 9:25 pm

gixxerjasen wrote: ↑Sun Sep 27, 2020 7:01 pmAny chance this is something that was laying in the road that was tossed up by the car in front of you and landed somewhere in the bike?

I considered this briefly but the part was in the parts tray. It was not on the garage floor or anywhere else. So I had to have put it there. But I must admit that I have no recollection of removing it from the bike. That's the frustrating bit.

Red wrote: ↑Mon Sep 28, 2020 12:08 am Did any "friends" drop by, when you had the bike apart?

SLK50 wrote: ↑Sun Sep 27, 2020 1:59 pm ... my first thought was a water drain at the
bottom of the headlight nacelle.
Curious to know if it is.

Enxss wrote: ↑Thu Oct 01, 2020 8:49 pm

SLK50 wrote: ↑Sun Sep 27, 2020 1:59 pm ... my first thought was a water drain at the
bottom of the headlight nacelle.
Curious to know if it is.

I inspected the headlight nacelle again as suggested and found that the nacelle and the front signal light assemblies use the same venting system. Here is an image showing the vent on the left front signal light assembly circled in red. I could not get a clear picture of the headlight nacelle vent itself given its position.

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AtnXFDB3rc4qgiEsXk_ ... p?e=pWn82b

After inspecting the entire bike one last time, I decided to go to a local Yamaha dealership and ask one of the technicians if they had any thoughts. I spoke with a very knowledgeable technician with nearly four decades of experience and who was intimately familiar with the FJR having swapped out an entire frame at one point in his career. He explained to me that the part in question was in fact not a component of the bike. What it is, is a part from the assembly process.

He explained that certain components of the bike, such as the instrument cluster, come preassembled to the factory for installation as the FJR is built. These preassembled components have various protective caps installed that are removed when the component is installed on the final product. The part that we have been discussing is one of those protective caps.

It appears that when the bike was initially assembled one of the protective caps was unintentionally left in the final product. When I removed the front panel that lies beneath the windshield and just above the headlights I gained access to an area that had not been touched since the bike was initially assembled. This area exposes the forward facing and upper surfaces of the instrument cluster. In the process of disconnecting the eight connectors at the end of the cables leading from the handlebar switches I must have inadvertently dislodged the protective cap from its resting place, allowing it to fall to the garage floor. I then picked it up, placing it in the parts tray without giving it much thought. Later, when I reassembled the bike, I had no thought of reinstalling it because I never uninstalled it in the first place. Thus explaining why I had no recollection of ever removing it from the bike.

The technician went on to explain further that the slots in the protective cap are not for ventilation. They are there to allow an automated process to manipulate the cap into place during its assembly. He concluded by saying that, over the years, he himself had come across several such parts.

Mystery solved!

It appears that the "friend" who stopped by my garage was actually a Yamaha employee at one of their assembly plants.

My thanks to all for your comments and suggestions.

Ride safe my friends!

Cheers.