KLE ER-5 Engine swap advice

[drandy]

Guys,

I thought I might make a few notes on my recent KLE restoration that might be of use to anyone going to try to swap an ER-5 engine into their KLE. It took some trial and error, but its more or less working now!

1) The water system is different, you need to swap the coolant pipes from the top of the engine. These will not come willingly, in fact try to obtain a new set if you can.

2) The ER-5 Timing pickup nodes are completely different and will not work with your KLE ignition. Either 1) swap the ignition module or 2) use the alternator cover and rotor from your old engine. I did the latter out of necessity, however, I did notice that the ER-5 has a far more convincing rotor and magnets which are also a couple of cm wider than the KLE.

3) You need to retain your KLE accelerator cables, the ER-5's are both thinner and shorter.

4) The ER-5 selector drum is reversed, leaving you with motoGP style shifting. I have not worked out a way to solve this, I will need to fabricate a new shift, but its going to be tight to fit it all in.

5) The ER-5 uses a nut on the output shaft and not the splined washer of the KLE, make sure your donor engine has it fitted. Mine did not, I have temporarily used an M20 A2 Stainless locknut, but will try to find the proper replacement.

I think it was a worthwhile conversion, the engine is now ten years younger than the bike. I just wish I knew the gotchas, would have helped to avoid frustration!

Regards,

Andrew

[drandy]

Just a quick note to say that if you have an angle grinder and a welder you can reverse the gear selector quite easily.

It does require a few cuts to make a nice curve in it, but the end result works great.

I will try and get a photo of my setup if anyone is interested.

Andrew

[drandy]

Here is the picture:



Will take no longer that 30 minutes. Just make sure you remove the plastic bush at the pivot or else your weld will melt it (like mine did!!!) and I have no idea where to get a replacement.

Its hard to see in the picture, but I have grinded down one of the welds but have left the second one so its clearer in the photo.

Andrew

[roanokejim]

Hi Andrew. I think that you have a good decision about that conversions.

[madbrit]

HI, I know this is an old post, but a good one, I have just changed a kle 500 for an ER5, and it backfires, then I read your post, when you say change the ignition module, do you nmean the CDI / igniter cos it is known by many things.

I Had to use the Stator and cover from the ER5 as the magnets exploded in the KLE and went into the gearbox and everywhere, so do i only change the CDI / Igniter ??

Thanks

Graham