Motorcycle Parts

Read Time:2 Minute, 13 Second

One of the very big reasons why the authors at Parts-Ring decided on this website is the lack of availability of second hand parts for older bikes. A dealer in Cape Town was overheard saying “if you don’t like the price get a newer bike”. Has anyone seen the price of parts in the South African market compared to the USA and wondered why we tolerate it? In all honesty – Gauteng (that’s our upper region – Johannesburg) seems to be more in line with biker’s needs than down in the Cape – we don’t have many businesses dealing in scrap but I doubt that everyone is out there buying a new bike. If anyone feels differently please drop us a line – I’ll be glad to set it right.

One business that is very much on the rise in South Africa is the sales of motorbikes – this term encompasses anything on two wheels in our case. Scooters are now in abundance, thanks to the Chinese exporters – they make good machines although we get complaints about the quality. Hang on, who wants to do 100 000Km on a 100cc anyway. Most small bike riders are still learning the basics and will discover in due course that a bike can only be driven for a short distance before a little bit of maintenance needs to be carried out. Like any vehicle – except bikes are a bit more prone to wear and tear. “Do the maintenance newbie riders – your life depends on it”.

I had an old bike where the primary drive sprocket used to vibrate off – this was because the engine was so shot we could never synch the carbs. But that’s another story.

There’s a very good website out there called GS Resources – primarily for Suzukis up to 1985. This will no doubt change in time but for Suzie riders there’s not a better place to make a pit stop. I’ve driven all the Jap makes and seriously, they are all good. Some models obviously better than others.
I had GS550M of Katana fame and thought it was the best engine out until an engineer told me that they were prone to crank bearing failure. That’s actually a peculiar comment to make considering that this was one of the reasons the engine was supposedly indestructible.

If you are looking for spares for old bikes there is a place I can recommend called BikeBandit. If any other dealers or manufacturers would like their company name to be advertised please feel free to contact our sales division through our contacts list.

BikeBandit.com is based out in the USA – they ship parts internationally and can assist with most queries.