Well in preparation for taking my Mod 2 in early August, i've picked myself up a 1999 Kawasaki ER-5 today for the lovely price of £470! An ex-test centre bike, she's mechanically sound as the bloke had taken good care of her with regular servicing and such. However cosmetically she's a little shabby; a few marks here and there on the tank, touch of surface rust on the swingarm, engine looks a bit grotty, the indicators have been duct-taped up and a few minor scratches and cracks to some of the rear plastics. The crash bars have also been tested several times

Anyway, i'll commence the teardown and tidyup tomorrow when I go pick her up. Everything metal and looking a bit miserable is in for a good sand and paint, the entire back end is coming to bits to do the swingarm and rear brake shoes, probably a new chain and sprocket set is in order as well.

The question I came to ask really, is does anyone know of any cheap, legal, LED indicators that I can whack on in place of the duct-tape stock ones? I'm not really sure of the legal issues regarding bike indicators, don't they have to be a certain distance from the body of the bike or something?

Cheers for any suggestions!

Click to view attachment

FYI I Knicked the following off Fleabay..

LED indicators work to a lower wattage than standard bulb-type indicators. It may be necessary therefore to replace the existing relay with a specially designed LED relay with the correct wattage.

Sounds like a good choice for a first 'big' bike to me.

Regarding LED indicators, if they're made for bikes, then it's not likely you'd be doing anything illegal fitting them. AS LONG as they flash at the correct rate (60-120 flashes per minute seems to come to mind). As Tom said though, they might not work correctly with the existing electrics.

You might be better off looking for other 3rd party normal indicators. Wemoto, Busters, M&P all do this sort of stuff.

Good luck with the tart-up

Ahh, that is a good point I hadn't thought of, yeah it'd probably be easier to look into some simple bulb types or just replace the stock ones. I shall go along that route then. Cheers guys

Ah - the ER5. Cheap as chips, and a great commuter. I considered buying a new one for getting to/from work. Then I bought a Blackbird. Not a sensible choice. Still, it's a bag of fun

Hope the ER5 comes up nice for you. Should be an excellent machine.

Good luck with the test. Keep us posted on how you got on. You will have your bike looking great for when you can legally ride it.

Cheers man, will do! Now i've picked myself a bike up i'll probably fail it now!



Thanks to that recommendation, i've ended up deciding on these:

http://www.busters-accessories.co.uk/produ...p;kw=indicators

Good choice.

I may be old-fashioned but I do like a bike to have indicators that are big enough to be seen - just as a matter of self preservation!

Indeed - it's always seemed a pretty pointless fashion statement having none visible indicators, to me.

Well I got her home today and i've started tearing her to bits. I think i'm gonna need a bit of touch-up paint for some of the bigger marks on the tank. Does anyone have any idea what the colour code for British Racing Green is? or if I could find an official code for just that bike?