How do I find out the original color of my bike? Is there some number in the serial that would tell me?
I might be wrong (in which case I'm counting on an old timer or two to set me straight) but I found this page of info somewhat helpful.
http://www.motorcycleproject.com/motorcycle/text/lubrtech.htmlI say "somewhat" because the whole Honda Paint thing is difficult for me to navigate generally, in my (limited) experience.
With the two or three options of colour for most bikes, and a real close look around the gas cap and in the deepest recesses where the paint faded off underneath the tank, maybe you can ferret out a tiny bit or flake that gives the thing away.
In my 6 months of Honda (and motorcycle) ownership though, I have come to agree with many of the more experienced folks when they encourage me to do all I can to preserve the integrity of my original tank paint job. (From what I've seen, average factory original with just a bit of care and attention almost always surpasses any attempt to duplicate. (An exception though, is when an owner redoes the whole bike right from the conceptual level - like cafe racerizing or chopping. Then I don't think original paint matters so much - and maybe it even becomes undesirable in many cases. I've seen some great bikes changed like that.) But this is about original Honda paint ....... "Mr. can't stick to topic guy!!!"
Anyway, see if it helps. (It helped me answer my own question (above) about Parakeet Yellow and the 76 CB 750 F. It seems as if the yellow I've seen on CB 750's was "Sulpher Yellow" and not Parakeet Yellow.) And now that I know, when I think about it - that Sulpher Yellow has more blue and less red in it that the Parakeet Yellow of the '76 and '77 400F's. "Sulpher Yellow" is brighter looking than the parakeet Yellow.
It would be interesting to know if anything to do with paint or colour is encoded in any of the machine's I.D. numbers though. In the case of my '76 400 F, there were only two colour alternatives offered (I think), and it would have been relatively simple (one would think) to encode that info somewhere. Whether or not there was any reason to do so is another question.
I think energy expended in the direction of preserving and restoring these original colours for the machines is extremely worthwhile, for a number of reasons. One thing that would be nice for me is to have the ability to check up on the validity of claims made by sellers of the machines, in their ads. And once it's flying, and comprehensive, we can move forward to actually collaborating on finding and or developing the best possible replacement and touch up colours ourselves. (Has anyone ever just called Honda itself about '60's and 70's motorcycle paint?)
What would everyone think about expanding the database to cover more machines besides the cb750 line? Maybe the machines listed on the above "motorcycleproject" page could be our framework..... We could start an image column maybe?
Just a thought .......
Regardless, I'm decent at web research, so when I get a few minutes I'll zip around and see if I can find anything that could be helpful to us.
