Okay, so I did a lamp mod on my old DT175 and curiously people want the old one. It's about the most obvious thing that stands out between the US-imports (here in the UK) and European bikes.

Now the most obvious things I know of are the back light, seat, luggage rack and daylight running lights wiring. Are there other differences between the two (or 3? are Jap bikes very different to European ones?)

Also, and I don't quite see how I can put this politely, are people taking US-imports, dressing them up with Euro parts and whistling innocently; all the time hoping no one looks at the engine number?

We could probably write a hefty sized tome on the differences between bikes for different markets! On the European bikes alone, the parts manuals have a column for each country, for each part.

West Germany (as they were then) would have the most differences in the European markets. France and UK had/have their own headlight regulations and I'm pretty sure that the UK (maybe Ireland as well?) was the only country that got the rear light featured in your photo.

Japanese Domestic Market also has/had some quirks - warning light for excessive speed on early bikes that could reach that speed (55mph?) and front indicators mounted on the fork ears (like the road bikes) instead of the handlebars.

I really must get out more!!

Edit

Some people do try and convert US imports to look like UK models.

As long as you have the registration number (stays with the vehicle in the UK) a search of our government's website will show the date it was first registered here - if this doesn't match up with the date of manufacture, then it is almost certainly an import.

I'm not sure "all" non-US bikes had KPH speedos??

I would guess UK and earlier Oceania models had MPH speedometers?

That's one thing about the specs... it's hard to say "all"... so many little differences and the vast majority of online data is for the US models.

Hopefully some of our members who know more will comment... Australia was MPH until about 1974... then for a couple years speedos read both... by about 1976, went to KPH.

I'm pretty sure Australian bikes before 1974 were MPH.

And isn't the UK still MPH?

I'm not sure I'm correct Devin! I just remember reading something here from Austrailia/New Zealand where a member commented on the speedo differences... can't find it.

As far as the UK... I have a JDM Honda CRM250 which was also imported into the UK (not by Honda, by an independent importer) and one of the requirements they had in the UK was changing the speedo to read MPH... this was in the late 1990's into the 2000's... maybe 2010's... So from that I'm guessing UK market Yamaha's might have had MPH speedos?

This forum is a great resource and hopefully people in other countries might have some documented facts of the differences in lighting and gauges... and other differences.

This is purely a generalisation on bikes with kph speedos imported into the UK that required the speedo to show mph - I recall that some people just put a sticker on the speedo glass!

Yes, that's exactly what they did on the CRM250AR, installed a sticker on the speedo glass. The point is not "how" they did it, but that they had to do it... which leads me to believe the 1970's Enduro's officially imported into the UK likely had MPH speedometer fitted and not the JDM-spec KPH meters.

I'd quite forgot speedo & headlamp - the sort of things you just take for granted So I would imagine something like a UK vs French bike (of the same model) mostly only differ on those two things. Practically though I can see the speedo/headlamp to be the most sort after "localisation" given you'd need these to be correct to make the bike at least roadworthy.

Anyhoo, gives me an extra dimension to be concerned about. Fascinating stuff, thanks guys

BTW, what model's that gauge from? It's very smart! Looks like new.

Regarding reproduction, I'm no expert but it mostly looks to be pressed sheet metal (bar the lens and wiring.) Do you have the resources to take mouldings and produce dies? Quite an undertaking!