{"id":22915,"date":"2024-06-19T00:10:43","date_gmt":"2024-06-18T22:10:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=22915"},"modified":"2024-06-19T15:15:06","modified_gmt":"2024-06-19T13:15:06","slug":"what-do-you-think-of-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/what-do-you-think-of-this\/","title":{"rendered":"What do you think of this?"},"content":{"rendered":"

With my bike having been picked up yesterday ready to be shipped back from whence it came I was at last able to return to servicing my Savannah which had been standing once again for one day short of a fortnight with no work having been done save for giving the aircraft an initial wash. My aim was to remove the lower engine cover so with the top cover already having been removed I could get free access to the engine.<\/p>\n

When I’d left it last time I’d found that the overflow outlet from the radiator expansion header tank was blocked, so the first job was to stick a point into that and unblock it. When I did so I found that unfortunately the problem was more serious. Not only was the outlet blocked but the metal outlet tube was also corroded away, meaning that when the engine became hot the coolant would not overflow into the plastic bottle that was connected to the outlet by a rubber tube so it could return to the system when it cooled down again but would instead spray out to the atmosphere and be lost.<\/p>\n

That meant that I’d have to order a new expansion tank and radiator cap as even though I’d cleaned it up, the old cap was still in poor condition. It also meant that I couldn’t start and run the engine for any length of time, and certainly not long enough to warm up the oil so I could drain it out and change it, so a full engine service (oil, oil filter and spark plugs) was again out of the question.<\/p>\n

So that gave me time to give the exterior of the engine a thorough clean and it certainly needed it. It could never be made to ‘look like new’ again due to the age of the aircraft but there was plenty of scope for removing the light surface corrosion that was on some parts of the engine (not serious) and the grime that had also built up, using WD40, fine wire wool and an oily rag. It took well over an hour but the final result was well worth the effort.<\/p>\n

When I came home I had to get straight onto the computer to order the parts that I needed and when I did so I was shocked. I already knew that the Rotax parts were going to be expensive but I had no idea just how so. Take a look at the following image that shows the parts that I needed from the Rotax parts list together with their prices.<\/p>\n

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The radiator cap alone was 88\u20ac – I ask you, just for a radiator cap – and the expansion header tank another whopping 127\u20ac, giving a total for the two of 215\u20ac. I didn’t investigate to see whether those prices included VAT but I’m pretty certain they wouldn’t have included shipping, so the actual total was probably closer to 230\u20ac or possibly even more. And if the header tank was of similar material to the original, it would also be subject to future corrosion over time, as the old one had been.<\/p>\n

But as usual, Google is your friend and it threw up an alternative source of supply on Ebay, as shown by the next image below.<\/p>\n

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This was in the form of a welded aluminium header tank, which seems to me to be of considerably higher quality than the Rotax original and also comes with the radiator cap and all for the princely sum of $99. So what do you think of that? I ordered these rather than the Rotax originals which I think are grossly excessively priced. How can a simple radiator cap be worth 88\u20ac? Answer, it’s not, but the Rotax design is exclusive for the engine and they are charging what they think they can get away with just because they think they can.<\/p>\n

But now they can’t. This time the Chinese manufacturer can’t be accused of dumping a subsidised product – it’s not like a car, it’s too small and specialised. What they are doing is manufacturing what appears to be a superior product more cheaply than Rotax and selling it at a realistic price that customers are only too willing to pay. I can’t see how, given the time they’ve been manufacturing their original items, Rotax can possibly justify the prices they’re asking for them. I think it’s just profiteering. What do you think?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With my bike having been picked up yesterday ready to be shipped back from whence it came I was at last able to return to servicing my Savannah which had been standing once again for one day short of a fortnight with no work having been done save for giving the aircraft an initial wash. … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22915"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22921,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22915\/revisions\/22921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}