For the earlier years up to 1965 the engine numbers reflect the year built, but after '65 the year built seems to get... Fuzzy?
For example, I have a CA77 that was sold in 1968 so I thought that I probably had one of the last one built because I had read that they stopped building them in 1967. I'm refreshing my engine/transmission this winter so I'm constantly ordering parts. I need a new bushing for the transmission and when I checked the CA77 Parts book it shows part number 23933-253-000 for engine #'s CA77E-1000001 to CA77E-1033686 and part number 23933-259-010 for engine #'s CA77E-1033687 to ------ . My engine number is CA77E-1023944 so that means that there were -at least- 9,743 CA77's built after mine. So was mine and those remaining 9,743+ CA77's all built in 1967 or was mine built in '65 or '66 and not sold till 1968? Not that it really makes a lot of difference, but when someone asks what year it is, all I can really tell them is that the last year they built them was 1967 and mine was sold in '68, but I really don't know when it was built. I know the there is suppose to be a tag showing when the wiring harness was made (which should be close to when the the bike was assembled) but on the CA's the harness runs inside the frame and tho I can see it, I could not find a tag on it when I looked.
I was wondering if there was some way (and if there is enough interest in doing this) to start a list (log?) on the left side here with the Riding & Repair logs that we could list our CA/CB/CL's with engine number (maybe frame) and the year of the title or registration? Maybe this would be helpful to some, maybe not. I know that in some states when something is sold with just a Bill of Sale the original registration date could be just about anything so maybe this is all moot. For me, if someone had a CA77 with a number close to mine that was known to be registered in '65, I'd like to know that.
Also, I wish there was some way to trace the registration thru all the owners and states. I know where I got my CA77 from, and that owner told me who he got it from and I contacted that owner who told me where it came from when he got it (he couldn't remember who that owner was) so traced it thru the past 3 owners and it appears to have been on the East coast then down to Tennessee, and now up here to Minnesota. Quite a life it lived so far and I hope it continues on long after I pass it on to the next owner.
Anyhow.... it's 5 degrees F. below zero here. Time to take a walk and count the dogs frozen to fire hydrants. :-)
tnx
George
Year Built vs Year Sold List/Log?
Wow! Good news on both. I'll drop e3Steve a pm with my numbers and see what he has found so far. I did email Tim asking about the bushings but did not hear back yet. I'll just order one. Thanks George In NY for any bike older than 1973, which when bikes started to come with titles, you only need a bill of sale, a rubbing off the frame number and an honest face to register a bike. And it can be pretty much any year you want it to be up to and including 1972.
Husabob told me you can register a bathtub with an outboard motor on it in NH with a bill of sale. So although a listing, if large enough should be statistically significant for showing trends. But given that a bike could sit on a showroom floor for 2 years and be registered as a current model year up until 1972 and subsequent owners could do what they wanted to once the bike was old enough for a decent story to apply (found in the back of my dead parents barn or bought it 20 years ago and lost the registration) the list won't be the final answer on any particular bike. What I think would be a pretty good database, would be the serial number and the wiring harness date. It is safe to assume that if serial number xxxx1 was made in 1967 then any number below that and higher than the highest know number with a wiring tag dated 1966 would be a 1967 manufactured bike, until such a time that a 66 dated harness with a higher number was discovered which would bump it down to 1966. Not sure we'd ever get the actual number where the cutoff between years occurred, but we'd get damn close. The years for which the bikes are registered will almost be anecdotal info. I did not know Steve was assembling such a list. I'll send him my bike info. regards, Rob
I'm in the (ongoing) process of collating frame nr/year data for '65, '66 & '67 CBs. The data I can offer is not definitive, but a guideline for machines with no year ID within its frame nr.
What I'm attempting to delineate is a list of frame nrs vs. harness year tags vs. registration dates. So far:
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