new signals ...new problem

OK here it goes................. My bike has stock rear turn signals and some uuugggllllyy old round signals off an old scrap heap of a honda :wink: .So off to ebay, I found some beautiful aftermarket signals(see below), installed them, but it does not flash but every 15 seconds or so. Put the old ones back on, every thing works, they flash. The only thing I can find is that the old bulbs are 12v/27watts while the new ones are 12v/23watts. (or 12v/.27watts and 12v/.23 watts (damn eyesight)). So off to the parts store for the appropriate bulb,,,none in stock or available (they are tiny as seen in pic below). Question is do you think I can put a 4watt (or .4watt (damn eyesight)) resistor in line with each signal,,,, or a single 8watt (you get the picture) on each right and left turn signal circuit, to bring the ohms up? Or can I get a new flasher relay to make them work?

 

Hm! sounds strange to me that going from 27 W to 23 W would give that kind of trouble. But, if you want to eat up 4W you have to put a resistor of 36 ohms in PARALLEL with the bulb. (33 ohms/5W or 39 ohms/5W should do the job). In Europe standard is 25W.
Is it the same failiure both left and right?

 

Come to think about it, 2W resistors would be ok. Half the time when the signal is on no current is floding. 2W resistors is much smaler than 5W, which is quite big.

 

You're absolutely right about the cause of the problem. When I installed aftermarket turn signals with 23W bulbs, the signals wouldn't flash. I only had to switch one bulb per side back to the stock 27W (in my case possible) to make them work.

You can add resistors to raise the draw and correct the problem.

If you change out the flasher itself, you'll lose the self-canceling feature unless you do further electrical mods.

 

I just had the same problem.
I replaced the original flasher with a 2 pin $2.69 variable load thermal car flasher. The pins go in the "B" and "L" slots.
My auto cancel doesn't work but my flashers work great.
SQL guy has a fix I am going to try that lets the auto cancel work with modern turn signals.

 

Rats!! I thought I did good using a $4.79 flasher unit to fix mine.
Even so it was $130 cheaper than the one at the local Yamaha shop and my auto-cancel wasn't working anyway.