Topic: History

[toycollector10]

All you owners of early Japanese bikes think about this..some of the Japanese survivors of Corigidor, Batan, The Phillipenes, Singapore, Siapan, the Coral Sea and other World War II theatres would have repatriated to Japan and some to the Honda factories.

While you or your father, grandfather, brother, uncle or cousin was toughing it out in Vietnam these survivors were putting our bikes together.

The bike or bikes you have parked up in your garage are in some ways a direct link with world history.

I have seen a Japanese spec. CB750 listed in the USA on eBay, it was probably bought by a G.I. on his was home through Japan.

There's no real point to this post except to raise this issue with you, if you have never thought about it before.

[Terry in Australia]

Just say no to drugs mate............ 

[toycollector10]

C'mon Tell, expand your mind dude!!

[Terry in Australia]

C'mon Tell, expand your mind dude!!

I'm trying mate, but I can't get any more in there!

[6pkrunner]

While I do not know of any local other-continent spec machines, I love to see the Euro, or other spec verisons to pick out the differences. The most obvious visually is the lighting requirements for the different countries. Of course emissions and such have other variances, but not so visible. Here's the lighting on a European K (well can't say K2 like here as it was different)

[6pkrunner]

Wouldn't allow both images into one post - too much.

[seabird]

And I now know (after spending a happy (!!) couple of hours fitting new Pistons/Wrist Pins/Ring sets and wrist pin circlips to my '75 400F) how they got their revenge for their defeat - all those who relocated to Honda (Japan) were given the task of designing the most awkward to fit item on the entire 'bike - those bl**dy wrist pin circlips! 

The first nearly tore my carotid artery out, the second nearly took my (only) good eye, the third tried to pierce an ear, while the last, obviously accepting that if the first three couldn't stop me, gave up (partially) and just went "Sproinninng" and hid in the chaotic heap known as my workshop, where I spent another 20 minutes tracking it down.

But, everything's now fitted, the silver things go up and down as they should without nasty grating noises.  Now all I have to do is hang on to that funny little chain thingie before it decides to submerge itself in the crankcase.

No Problem!

Terry
(Seabird)

[6adan]

 I have one of the JDM CB 750's I baught in Japan in 1970 while in the Navy and brought back on the ship I was on.The only thing I could see different is mine has a red light between the tach. and the speedo.that would come on blinking at about 50 and turn stedy at 55.It had what looked like a small generator mounted in the speedo. cable. If anyone has one and the cable  please let me know I would like to hook mine back up. Dannie

[bryanj]

I have a "NOS" one of those lights but from the wire colours it just comes on with the rear light (plus front marker light in UK). As to that 750 pictured yes it is a K2, just with alternative lights----In uk ALL the 750 we had we K2's up untill the K7/F1

[Raul CB750K1]

6pkrunner, those lights were only mandatory for Germany. The rest of Europe got the same lights than everywhere, with little variations. For example, in France the headlight bulb had to be yellow -not bright-. The parts list cover all the different variations.


Raul

[6pkrunner]

Sweet - thanks for the info Raul. The brouchure is German and I wondered how many countries it covered. Gotta love information and trivia!! Again thanks.

[Terry in Australia]

I have one of the JDM CB 750's I baught in Japan in 1970 while in the Navy and brought back on the ship I was on.The only thing I could see different is mine has a red light between the tach. and the speedo.that would come on blinking at about 50 and turn stedy at 55.It had what looked like a small generator mounted in the speedo. cable. If anyone has one and the cable  please let me know I would like to hook mine back up. Dannie

I bought a Japanese domestic model CB750K4(?) from a school teacher who'd spent time teaching jap students English, and the bike came with that red light mounted in the steering stem nut, but the lamp assembly had been removed. he told me that it was an incentive for riders to keep to "legal" speeds, but he'd thrown away the guts of the thing as it was always on at his normal cruising speeds.

The only other difference of course, were all the warning stickers were in Japanese script. I repainted a K0 "wrinkle" tank (I had no idea then that they were worth big bucks back then) as the original had a big ding in it, and I sold it to an English back-packer who was going to ride it around Australia. I offered to buy it back when he arrived back in Melbourne, but never heard from him again sadly, it was a great bike, so maybe he took it back to Britain............ Cheers, Terry