XL 185 identification

[roryntp]

Hi All,

A colleague of mine has been offered an Honda XL 185 from a mate that has been using it as a field bike for a few years and I'm trying to help him identify it so that he can see how much parts are going to be to see if it is worth getting road worthy again.

Are there any tell-tale signs of finding out which age it is?

The VIN is pretty useless because if just starts L185S-500XXXX which doesn't tell us much more than the fact that it's a 185 S.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks.
____________________
1996 VFR 750
1989 TZR 125

[Blue_SV650S]

The 'S' is actually the key here.

You already know the exact model (XL185S), the exact year isn't important (from a spares point of view). The 'S' will narrow it down to a few years (you will need to google it to find out which).

For example I had a CB125J and CB125S, the last letter designating the model - which was just an incremental upgrade, not like one was the sports model and one was the basic model.

Manufacturers still do a similar thing now e.g. CBR600FM is older than a CBR600FN, but they are essentially just the CBR that was available for sale that year (the later having a few styling changes obviously).
____________________
The purpose of life is to fight maturity.

[roryntp]

cheers buddy.

we managed to find a fiche somewhere online with the model numbers/years in a database and it turns out its a 1979 model (the first year it was produced) so i think he's gonna go with it.
____________________
1996 VFR 750
1989 TZR 125