Wow! 
Yet another stunning example of how my bikes are simply reasonable facsimiles of what was once a bike that looked like yours. You do fantastic work.

Skydancer you do a awesome job have you ever restored a car?

Thanks Schu and HT1kid, 

No never did restored a car. Was a ASE certified master tech for about 20 years out in San Diego so worked on many in my time. I have a good friend here local that owns and restores muscle cars. He very good at it. He also builds nice custom jeeps from the frame up. Literally he custom builds the frames from raw stock from local steel supplier. I go out there on weekends and hang out when i have time. My brother and a few friends go to car shows weekly in the summer. My brother has a super nice original 2002 Chevy Corvette Z06. He retired from GM.  I go and sit around with them if there are no bike shows that weekend. Still very active with cars too. 

I thought you might since you do such a great job on your bikes. Your friend must be very talented to make a frame from scratch. I have restored several Mustangs when I was younger just to hard to crawl under the Mustangs I really enjoyed it and met a ton of friends. Yamaha enduros are much easier I have always owned a Yamaha since 1969 

I thought about in the past but really no room to restore a car where i live now. We use the garage for parking our everyday drivers to keep them out of the weather. My friend has 2 buildings with electric lifts and storage area. Makes it nice when restoring cars. 

Bike looks terrific dancer! You are surely talented.

Judging from the items you did not have to refinish, I am thinking you got this in decent shape to begin with?

Well done for sure!

Thanks NHSTEVE,

Yes the bike was 95 percent complete when i bought it. See post 20 for a picture. But it was sitting for many years up on the east coast which took it's toll on it. Engine had moisture damage where water got into the mag side engine cover which damage the crank bearings, crank and rod bearing surfaces. Bike has very low mileage, around 670 miles on it. I was told a young guy bought it new in 68, rode it around a bit then got sent over to Vietnam and never came back. I bought it from a guy that had it and was going to have it professionally restored  but already has a nice restored 68 DT250 in his collection so he decided to sell it. It was not advertise for sale. I just happen to be at the right place at the right time. 

Being the condition it was in i did not want to do a full restoration on it. It would have took to much money on top of what i had to pay for the bike already. The bike really did clean up pretty good with a lot of hard work and many hours as you see it now. I went thru every nut and bolt on the bike. I,m pretty happy with it. I wanted to keep it as correct as possible even if it means not looking the best it can. So far it only has 1 small non 68 part (not counting correct reproduction items) on it for the time being. I do have the original if i can get it restored and working?? 

thanks again! 

I finally received my 68 DT1 NOS Yamaha tank emblems this weekend.  Been waiting 4 long months, ever since i bought the bike. Wasn't even sure i would ever see them. I am sure most of you are aware how hard these things are to find, let alone buy! Personally i think it's the most important part to have for this bike so this makes me real happy.  

For a little comparision:  From 7 to 10 feet away you can not really see the difference between the originals and the reproductions emblems. The reproductions are surprisingly very good. But once you get close you can clearly see the difference. There is 3 things that stand out to me when comparing.

1st: The NOS emblems have a pinkish red colored back side. Makes since because the red in the emblem is transparent. If you shine a light behind the NOS emblems they will glow bright red from the front side. The repos are silver on the backs and no light goes thru the red. The emblem just blockes the light.

2nd: The lettering is more pronounced in the NOS emblems. Much more. I think you can see this in the picture i have below. 

3rd: The NOS emblems are a bit smaller in size and the quality is far better when handling them and looking at them close. 

I am no expert on these, in fact this is the 1st time i seen them side by side and always wondered if you could tell the difference? Now i know you can. Anyone else have a set of NOS emblems or know more about them please let me know.

Now if you compare the black and silver emblems on the 69-71 250 bikes there is much less of a difference. I have both sets of them and even up close it's very hard to see the difference! Really the only thing i see different is the original Black Yamaha emblems are coated or painted flat black on the backs and the reproductions are again silver in color. I would have no issues installing reproduction emblems on a 69-71 bike and i would bet most people would never know the difference!  I know i wouldn't. 

The NOS emblems are on the right in case you can't see the difference. Lol!  If you look closely at the bottom of the letters you can see the difference in the thickness and you can see the color red is more richer or brighter then the Reproductions. Pictures are smaller now that i don't go thru Imgur web site to post on here. 

  


  

  


 

Interesting! Since it was a topic recently, here is a comparison of the Mellow Yellow repops and the real meal deal - nos Yamaha for the AT1/CT1

 

top two are NOS and bottom one is Mellow Yellow’s. I have a couple of the latter which will go on rider tanks.

here is NOS and worn and faded Original compared:

 

the factory ones have a pronounced curve as well.

Wonder why Mellow Yellow doesn't make DT250 Emblems. Yes i agree you can see the difference between his repos and the NOS ones for the AT/CT tanks.