Some great info going in this thread! Any knowledge out there about a match for 78 DT250E? The last owner thought blue would be a more suitable color and did a hack job with overspray all over the frame, forks, etc.



Current plan is to give the bike a tear down and restore this plan. Spending this summer riding and getting it mechanically sound.

Also, I saw a few posts about painting silver bits (fork legs, etc). Is that preferred to just cleaning them up? Or did Yamaha paint the fork lets on some earlier models and people are just repainting?

I did a search and read this entire thread but unless I missed it I don't see any mention of the "Baja brown" for a '73 RT-3
Any help out there? Maybe a close enough match to an auto paint code that Napa could mix and put in a spray can would suit me.

Ken

My understanding is that Yamaha used to paint a clear enamel or lacquer paint on some aluminum parts such as forks, so that's what's done here. Looks good to me kind of like seeing the natural aluminum variations through the clear.
Might be wrong been wrong before and if need correction let me know got a lot of clearcoat lacquer in stock...

I have two bikes to get paint for. A 1972 AT2 and a 1971 DT250. Are they both Mandarin orange? I went to T-Max up here in Alberta, Canada and the (rather snippy) counter person took a reading off of an unfaded part of my AT1's body work. He told me that his computor said there is no match to any of the colours they sell. Anywhere. From any paint manufacturer............. did I mention that he was pretty snippy? My problem is that a lot of the paints in this thread are sourced from US suppliers and Canada is really bad for not allowing paint across the border. Has anyone had any luck sourcing these colours from a Canadian supplier?

Wow...$87.78 per can of paint plus $32.82 shipping to Canada.

Slowpoke , your AT2 and DT1 E both use Mandarin Orange . It was also used on the R5 B and C .
A friend of mine here in New Zealand dealt with RS paints in the UK . They were able to send
him a test pot of paint , which he then had colour matched . The base coat and clear were
sourced here in NZ . They were very helpful .
That might work as an option if you can't find an easier solution .

Thanks Devin,
I did read your post but like a few others on here, I'm in Canada so shipping and cost are factors. I'll keep the info in mind but if someone has found an "off the shelf" close match I'm interested.
I'm a very long way from needing paint on this bike so lots of time to think and research it.

thanks
Ken

OK. I found (in the life is stranger than fiction category) this on the shelf of Canadian Tire up here in Canada. I don't know if you Americans can get this down there but I feel it is worth the shot because: This is an unbelievable match to Mandarine Orange. Not perfect, 100 point show bike match but close enough to be profoundly deceiving when the whole bike is painted IMHO. Don't reject the can based on the colour of the cap. It's way off.

2 samples for comparison:

Dupli-Color BNS0503 Orange Mist Met against an original '71 DT1E (Mandarin Orange). Note that for ordering in the US there is no "C" at the beginning of the part #.



Dupli-Color BFM0350 Amazon Green Met against an original '73 DT3 (Competition Green).



Both samples were clear coated and waxed.