Relocating the front turnsignals

One thing I remembered doing to my bike that I neglected to mention before was relocating the front turnsignal pods when putting on the aftermarket cafe bars.

When I got my R5, the front signals were mounted on the forks on factory-looking washer-like mounts located just under the top fork nuts:



Sorry the picture isn't very clear - these were taken by the previous owner and posted as part of the eBay auction. But at least you can see that the signals are not attached to the sides of the headlamp, but further back by the forks. You can see the bolts that hold the headlamp on just in front of the signal lenses. See the pic below for comparison.

Anyways, the problem was this - when I mounted the new cafe bars, the hand controls would not clear the turnsignals - there was just no way to have them both in the same spot. I had seen the front signals on other R5s mounted on either side of the headlamps, and in fact, there is a depression in the metal that is the same size as the end of the signal arm (I think there were holes for the locator pins as well - you can kinda make them out in the photo above). So with a little fineggeling I moved them there and ditched the mount washers:



Is there any reason to why some bikes have the fork mounting location and some are mounted on the headlamp ears? Model year difference? Is this something owners did for better clearance, or what?

Anyways, just something to keep in mind if your bike is set up the same way...