Michael Brito wrote in:
Great web site. Awesome bike. In fact your R5 inspired me to refurbish an R5 of my very own. I would like to know where you got the turn signals for your R5 so I can relocate mine. Did you farm out most of the paint work? How much $$$ did you put into your R5?
Thanks for writing!
I wrote a little about relocating my front turn signals
here. After Mike wrote in, I realized now that I didn't go into much detail. I hadn't bought aftermarket signals, I just used the ones that were already there, but were mounted to the forks using brackets. From what I can remember, here's the process:
- remove the nuts on top of the forks
- slide off bracket and turn signal
- remove bracket from turnsignal
- replace fork nuts
- disconnect wiring to signals (no cutting necessary)
- remove headlight from bucket, reroute wiring (from bike) into the bucket from the hole in back
- remove nuts holding bucket to flanges on both sides
- run wiring (signal) through holes in headlight flanges and bucket
- align signal base to depression on flange
- use signals to hold bucket to flanges, reuse nuts to tighten bucket and flange to signal
- reconnect wiring, test
- remount headlamp
Sounds complicated, but I figured it out just by fiddling around myself, so with the above directions anyone should be able to do it no problem.
As for the paint, I was lucky and found a bike that had been parked in a garage for most of it's life. There's little damage, just a few dents and chips. I haven't done much in terms of paint besides cleaning and waxing.
If you're looking for the metallic Mandarin Orange paint, unfortunately you're out of luck as it's no longer made.
Here's a link to some discussion about a possible House of Kolor alternative.
All in all, I haven't spent much on the bike, $550 to buy, and about $1000 in parts and work to get it running, inspected, new tires, new bars, one new sidecover, and a NOS matching mirror. Not bad for such a great little bike!
