Yamaha DT 175

Yamaha DT 175

Just like our Yamaha TY250 which is a factory number one, this DT175 is a factory number one as well. As far as the story goes this was 1 of 100 pre production bikes made that was sent to dealers to show off the up and coming production DT175. This was found in the back of a shop stored away for years –  apparently it should have been destroyed but survived – not only that its got less than 1000 miles on it.

Along with the TY range I’ve loved the the DT range from the 70’s. The style is timeless, these are lower powered road bikes with the off road look and off roaders still look similar today.

As with other 2 stroke bikes in the collection the reason I got this was – we used the pistons in Lambretta engines.

As standard these used Reed valve induction, which meant the piston had 2 holes in it. In early Lambretta conversions tuners cut up old pistons and welded up the holes to use in a normal piston ported cylinder. The crown heights were really short and a longer Lambretta Tv175 con rod or later when I converted cranks using the Yamaha RD400 con rod which meant no machining of the cylinder to make them work.

When the Lambretta reed valved TS1 cylinder came out people used these DT pistons as a reed valve but had to repeg the piston. I moved away from these pistons when I found the Yamaha IT175 pistons that was identical but had wider ring peg gaps. I didn’t buy a Yamaha IT bike as they were so ugly!