Front Brake Perch Versions.....

[srpackrat49]

Well i have a 71 taka and it has the one that is drilled and taped ..... i,ll look inside the headlit to see if there is a wire hookup for it??  and the story gos on......

[CL-100]

I have a '73 Taka which uses the drilled/tapped perch as it has a working brake light switch.  It would make sense to me that Rockford used these then as I believe the US started requiring a brake light switch by the late 60's or early 70's.  My '71 GTO and '71 100GP have the brake light switch, my '68 GTR does not.  When I was restoring the GP I found that the GP/TMX parts supplement had the additional wiring part needed to link the front brake switch to the rear switch.  I also have '69 Yamaha 125 AS2C that has the factory brake light switch. 

I'm still looking for one more early version perch (without any casting for a switch) for a project in the queue.  I have NOS versions of both the newer styles that I can trade.

[Old BS Guy]

This comment is very late to the discussion, but I've run into similar issues with Honda, and it came back to the US safety regulations for imports starting at about that time. As an example, the '68 Trail 90 is the only year that came with an amber light in the speedo head, with a "W" on it. It stood for "winker", even though the turn signals weren't required yet, and weren't on the bike, but they were the following year. Even the lever perches were already being cast for a T/S switch, but no switch was present. The importing manufacturers were getting models ready for US DOT laws requiring turn signals, and.....you guessed it...front lever switches for brake lights. The trail 90's do the same thing with the front brake at about that time. I don't believe the non-US bikes were required to have it.

.........KP