Decals

I was looking at the repop decals on reproductiondecals.com and the set they have for the 1000 B3 is a blue color. wasn't the original on the black paint a goldish color? mine had been spray canned so I am not sure what the original was and I cant find any close up pics. maybe the gold was for the dark green paint job, hard to tell in the photos

dman3998 wrote:

I was looking at the repop decals on reproductiondecals.com and the set they have for the 1000 B3 is a blue color. wasn't the original on the black paint a goldish color? mine had been spray canned so I am not sure what the original was and I cant find any close up pics. maybe the gold was for the dark green paint job, hard to tell in the photos

Hello dman:

The picture is even more complicated than you thought. Generally, there were officially two paint schemes (includes decals) for some of the LTD year models...to further cloud that, early production runs had the paint schemes of the previous year model (doesn't apply to the B1). For example, I bought a new KZ1000B3 when they first appeared and the decals were patterned after what www.reproductiondecals.com shows for the B2 model. What that site shows for the B4 model is correct but also what they show for the B3 as that appeared on early run B4 models also. The B3 paint scheme you are thinking of doesn't appear on the repro site (it is however, pictured on the cover of the B3 service manual supplement dated April 1979). There...satisfied:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

I'm trying to go by memory here (a dangerous thing sometimes) but if I remember correctly, the black B-3's came with a stripe that was similar to the 78 B-2's except that it was a sort of torquoise and gold color. The B2's had a red and silver combo.

and I thought I was confused before...

So I am restoring my B3, I have a fresh super nice glossy black paint job, which set of decals from anywhere should I use that are more or less correct? not that most anyone would notice and I am not going for a 1000% actuate NOS kinda deal, just something close and nice.

thanks

Huh, I guess I'm not as senile as I thought.:laugh: I went looking for pics of a 79 B-3 and here is what I found. This is a close up shot that shows the color of the stripes.

And here is one that shows how they looked on the bike from a wider view. Kinda nice to know I haven't totally lost my mind, at least my long term memory still works. Now where did I set that cold beer down?

That looks like the decals that repro has listed for the 78 ltd. works for me! I like them better that the 79 set, amd cheaper too. Like Mcdroid was saying, they lap across years probably using stock from the last year till they ran out.


thanks