(Educational, clear, practical — written for real excavator operators and buyers in South Africa) When you walk into a parts yard or message a supplier, the first thing they’ll ask isn’t your excavator’s colour, bucket size, or where it last got stuck in the mud.They’ll ask you one thing : “Do you have the OEM part number?” For many machine owners, that question instantly triggers panic. They flip open a manual from 2004, scratch their heads, and pray the number they send isn

Every excavator part has a story. Some live long, some die young, and some soldier on through rebuild after rebuild until they finally give up and get thrown onto the scrap pile behind a workshop in Germiston. Understanding the full lifecycle of an excavator component  helps you: plan maintenance better budget more accurately know when to repair instead of replace avoid catastrophic failures buy smarter when sourcing used OEM parts Most failures don’t come out of nowhere — th