Thursday 7 April 2016

Vintage Motorcycle Bearings For BSA, Triumph, Norton, Velocette, Vincent and many more.

I have been spending time looking at bearings used in the old British motorcycles such as BSA, Triumph, Norton, Vincent and Velocette and then checking who is selling them on Ebay and other sites. It is a real eye opener! Firstly the number of companies/individuals, secondly where they operate from and thirdly the variation in the prices being charged. One company in Austria seems to hold the stocks but they're not cheap and carriage charges quickly add up. Other companies operate from France, India, USA amongst others.

Many of the bearings offered are imperial. When these motorcycles were built they used bearings manufactured by Ransome and Marles, Hoffman and Pollard who all eventually got together to become RHP brand. These companies produced a huge number of imperial ball and roller bearings. RHP continued to produce the bearings until their demand faltered and now the ability to find these obsolete bearings gets ever harder.

Imperial ball bearings these days are manufactured by many Chinese companies and are synonymous by the absence of any markings which would identify the manufacturer. When you see an unmarked bearing offered there is a good chance that you are buying a cheaply imported bearing. One company in Japan that  has a growing reputation for supplying very good quality imperial ball bearings is the KSM brand. It is good quality and is used by companies who find that RHP is too expensive but at the same time would not tolerate using unbranded bearings.

WMT Bearings sell KSM but can equally supply top quality Western brands such as SKF, RHP and FAG. In some cases availability may be based on an unbranded anonymously manufactured bearing. Would you use them on your machine?

WMT Bearings sell a full range of bearings on Ebay but will always advise the customer what they are getting.

If you need bearings for any automotive equipment please give me a call at anytime. I specialise in FAG BEARINGS (do a search on Ebay for "MINT BOXED FAG" but can supply the full range and in many cases a damned sight cheaper than any of the foreign companies out there on the net.

Whatever your bike please give me a call. I like to think that I am competitive. Tell me what you need and leave me to quote you.

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