About 4 years ago I suddenly found a Yamaha TD1B, a bike I looked for already for a long time.

How I got it is a story on itself and nice to share with you

One day I visited my local Yamaha dealer, Motoport Hillegom.

The workshopforeman Rob told me that he just purchased 2 bikes from a man who had repatriated from South Africa back to Holland. To cut a long story short, Rob kept a lovely Honda CB750 K0 1969, now after restoration probably the nicest one in the Netherlands and let me have the (you guessed it already) TD1B. here is Rob proudly standing with his CB750 K0 (sorry it is not a 2-stroke......!)

The old racer was 100% original and even had the extremely rare, concrete wire strengthened cowling with it. But the bike was in a very sorry condition. But again, the bike came from the first owner and was at it had been parked after its last race in 1966 or so.

The machine was painted dirty yellow, the tank was covered in fibreglass (they were made of very thin aluminiumplate) and always leaked.....!

But I was more than happy with my original T1-303 bike and started working on it immediatley. Stripping the bike, labelling parts, polishing the aluminium bits whereby you end up looking like a monkey, you know how it works. I had done many YDS engines and as they are all the same more or less, that went alright.

Yamaha TD1B

The brake levers on both wheels were also worn and I got original drawings from my friend Mr. Matsui from Yamaha Japan who also worked on these bikes in the sixties already. Nico Bakker, the famous Dutch framebuilder, made the parts and here they are.

Nico also made a beautiful new tank from thicker material. Here you see him at work on a Yamaha V-Max. He now makes special rear swing-arms with a third joint to accomodate the widest wheel in business (looks very cool!)

Here is the modified V-Max swing arm.

Another friend, this time from Holland, Mario van Rooijen, Chief G.P. helmet designer/painter at ARAI Europe, painted the bike in its original colours, so now it is back to its former glory.

to be continued.......