Following my recent track day mishap, I’ve spent the last couple of weeks patching up the Fazer. It was tough to decide what the best plan, whether to repair back to stock, go naked/streetfighter or just flog it for spares. Especially tough when it’s only worth around £1.5k and will need to be traded in shortly due to the upcoming London ULEZ in one and half years time.
The damage, although cosmetic was extensive, the fairing plastic had disintegrated, the fairing bracket was about to snap, every mounting lug on the light cluster had snapped off, the clocks had lost a lug and the fuel gauge no longer worked. Those parts alone cost close on £1100 brand new… Even the street fighter option was less than straight forward, needing a new headlight, brackets, some different indicators, mirrors and some fabrication to mount the clocks.
In the end, I managed to source many of the parts cheap from a breaker and only needed to purchase a new fairing and some missing screws and bolts. Definitely a preferable option, a stock roadworthy bike will always have greater used value than something custom or non-runner. The parts weren’t perfect, but workable. All in, I had the Fazer back on road for the princely sum of £360. Below are my tips for hunting down parts and getting a busted bike back in action.
Get on eBay!
- Learn the eBay search query syntax; use braces and commas to search for this or that, and minus to exclude crap:- (this, that) -crap
- Search for every name for an item – one person’s fairing is another’s cowling.
- Search for items by product number too. See if they’re common to other models too and search for them too, e.g. the Fazer light cluster is common between the FZS600 2002-03 and the FZS1000.
- Search abroad, ebay.de, ebay.fr, ebay.com. Items in the EU won’t be hit for customs, vat etc (for time being) and can usually be shipped for not too much more. Use Google translate to find names for items in foreign languages (or search foreign part supplies by product code).
- Looks for sellers breaking a bike and contact them for the parts you need. Many only list a handful of items, so see if they have what you need and can do a deal on multiple parts.
- Search for items that are about to end below a given price, or are buy-it-now and newly listed, to find bargains.
- Set up a followed search to get email updates when new items suddenly appear.
Get clued up on current prices and availability of new parts, you’ll be surprised how much on eBay is barely any cheaper or even more expensive.- In addition to eBay, put a shout out on any owners forums for your bike too.
Get clued up on current prices and availability of new parts, you’ll be surprised how much on eBay is barely any cheaper or even more expensive.A busted bike need not be the end. With a bit of patience and the above tactics, you can find the parts you need without breaking the bank. You don’t necessarily need to write off that binned bike or have to pay top dollar on brand new genuine parts.
