xj650 Lh/h?

Searched through out the site and, googled till I was blue in the face and couldnt find out the diffrence between the LH and the H versions of the xj650....
I will be getting a manual here shortly, but would like to know if anyone here knows?
Thanks!

 

H is the year designation = 1981

L means it's a Seca.

An XJ650H is a 1981 XJ 650 Maxim
An XJ650LH is a 1981 XJ 650 Seca

 

Well that was simple! I wonder if the L stands for Laguna as in Laguna Seca?
Thanks!

 

I thought "R" was the designator for the Seca model. The bike in question wouldn't happen to be a Turbo, would it?

 

I stand corrected.

 

Wow, this is confusing. Mine's an '82 XJ750RJ, which is a SECA. The '83 750 SECA is apparently an XJ750RK.

Which would have led me to think that H was for 1980; but maybe they skipped I, since it looks too much like a 1?

 

Ummm.......well, not really.

The "L" can mean different things in different years,

For the 1981 XJ650 models, the "H" is a regular Maxim, and is really the YEAR DESCRIPTOR. All Yamaha bikes in 1981 were "H" models, as the H stands for 1981.........

So a 1981 550 Maxim is a XJ550H, a 1981 550 Seca is a XJ550RH, etc.


The confusion arises because Yamaha is using the whole sequence of model ID as a "base description" of the bike, and only then adding letters to the end IN ADDITION TO THAT YEAR DESCRIPTOR to identify bikes that are anything OTHER THAN the base model.


Let's take a peek behind the curtains..........


1980 year code is "G", so a 1980 XJ650 Maxim will be an XJ650G.

Note that in 1980, the XJ650 was available ONLY as a Maxim, so there is no need for any other letter-code suffix.


1981 year code is "H", so a 1980 XJ650 Maxim---the "base" model----is an XJ650H.

Now, the OPTIONAL XJ650 model was the Midnight Maxim........it's still a 1981 model, but now, besides the "H" as the year code, we have to add another identifier to "code" for that non-base model, and thus we have:

XJ650LH = 1981 XJ650 Midnight Maxim


1982 year code is "J", so a base Maxim model is an XJ650J.

In 1982, there were now three different XJ650 models: the base Maxim, the Seca, and the Turbo. So watch this:

The base model Maxim, as usual, gets no additional designator, and it is therefore an XJ650J model.

The Seca is an "R" model (all Seca models in the XJ-series are "R" model, regardless of engine size), so it's a XJ650RJ.

The Turbo is an "L" model...........so it becomes an XJ650LJ.


Note how the letter "L" means "Midnight" in 1981 and "Turbo" in 1982 as it applies to the XJ650 bikes............and it may mean something else on other models!


The above format holds true all the way through the XJ series of bikes, except when you get to the 1985-86 XJ700 models, which then add a suffix letter AFTER the model year designator if it's a California model bikes (extra emissions stuff), so a 49-state 1985 XJ700 Maxim is an XJ700N ("N" being the year code for 1985 model bikes), and the California models becoming an XJ700NC model.......

 

SQL----yes, the letter "I" was skipped as a model year "code", and probably for the exact reason you specified. Other letters were skipped also, the letters "M", "N", "O", "P", "Q", and "R", and probably many others.......

 

Can confirm that a 1981 Yamaha XJ650LH is a Midnight Maxim. I happen to have this exact model and the designation is indeed XJ650LH.


Regards,
Chris

 

Gets really interesting if you start looking at the XS series around the same time; there was an "S" (for Special) and the ubiquitous "L" got used for "Midnight" as well as other things also.

The "year alphabet" was consistent with the XJs though.