SA Dealers News and opinions about topics in general

Ok so first time I ever do this so I am bound to make mistakes!

Heres a few more pics

Pic 1

Rough shape

Started shaping the ‘thing’ by cutting an angle in the front and rear with a hacksaw

Pic 2

Rough shape rear view

thing from a different angle

Pic 3

Wet foam

The filler foam has not completely set (more than 12 hours later!

Pic 4

Rough shape on bike

Testing the shape on the bike

Pics 5,6,7,8

Starting to look like something extra foam added

Starting to look like something extra foam added side view

Starting to look like something extra foam added front view

Yet another picture of extra foam added

Batteries on the camera conked out so alot of shaping got done in between, decided I wanted to round the tail more so added more foam to get a single uninterrupted curve

Pics 9, 10, 11

Nearly completed shape on bike

Nearly completed shape on bike from another angle

Nearly completed shape on bike again from another angle

Got some nice shape into the tail and checking it on the bike

Pic 12

Ready for laying of fibreglass

little things on the front are an afterthought to extend the tail piece under the seat and make a smoother transition, getting ready to lay fibreglass

Pics 13, 14, 15

Ugly dip

Ugly dip

Ugly dip

Grrrrr…. fibreglass resin eats away at the polystyrene, literally melting away all my hard work on shaping the tail, added to which I ran out of resin, talk about forward planning! now i need more resin, and probably going to have to build up the dips with body filler.

On the bright side, because of the foam and surviving polystyrene the tail piece is so stiff i was tempted to stand on it cos it felt so strong. And that with 1 layer of fibreglass!!

I have since started correcting the shape and added more fibreglass.

Posted under SR 500 Project Bike

I just read on an obscure post on the Business report that SAM (South African Merchants) are set to buy over Gomoto in South Africa.

SAM are importers for the Jonway, Bajaj, Shineray, and Regal Raptor brands and Gomoto import and distribute the Gomoto range (naturally).

While the consolidation will be good (hopefully for distributors, dealers and clients alike) I wonder what this means for the overlapping product lines? Bashan and Gomoto both have trailies, as well as motards, then Gomoto has the Buzz which is near identical to the Jonway Spirit.

Do you think they will cull some of the product range?

Gomoto : http://www.gomoto.co.za/
SAM: http://www.jonway.co.za/site/
Business Report: http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=563&fArticleId=5049484

Posted under Motorcycle news

Smart Electric

Seems next year is a good one for electric vehicles.

Original article here

Posted under Car news, Classifeds Sites Updates, Electric Vehicles, Joburg International Motor Show

I just saw this article on a Chinese car that might be the first electric sedan for sale in the united states. Rather than being a ground up development specifically designed as an electric vehicle they are using a modified version of an existing car.

It will be distributed in the US by Coda (which is a branding exercise of Hafei which actually manufactures the car)

Interesting to think that the Chinese may actually be selling electric vehicles before the Japanese, Americans or Europeans. It won’t be cheap but no new electric vehicles can be because of economies of scale and development costs.

I made an reference to the Joule in an earlier post which is being developed by Optimal Energy. According to the FAQ it will be available in 2010, as will the Coda. I sometimes wonder if companies like Optimal Energy would not gain more support and have a wider customer base if they released more information regarding the developmental process as they follow it.

Surely releasing images of that car being tested and developed would whet potential clients appetites, and maybe even allow them to justify the premium they would need to pay for the car? The greater a following a car has the more likely it is someone will pay a premium price for it right? Or do I have supply and demand wrong?

More info on the Coda on their website and on Technology Review at http://www.technologyreview.com/business/22898/

Posted under Car news, Electric Vehicles

I actually did this about 2 months ago, bbut am only posting it now!
Being bored I figured I would get started on the tail

So pic 1

SR 500 polystyrene tail 1

Started out with some polystyrene (knew I kept this rubbish for a reason!!) Pushed a screw in each side to keep it together.

Pic 2

SR 500 polystyrene tail 2

Top view as you can see the back looks REALLY wide, much too wide for my tastes

Pic 3

SR 500 polystyrene tail 3

So after alot of jigging and looking and head scratching I actually cut a section off the back of the bikes frame, it was just pushing it too wide, a few extra pieces to help form the shape later. Spaced off the back wheel by another piece of polystyrene.

Pic 4

SR 500 polystyrene tail 4

My supervisor making sure I am doing my job properly

Pic 5

SR 500 polystyrene tail 5

Side view of the bits and bobs stuck together

Pic 6

SR 500 polystyrene tail 6

Foam filler, to fill the big gaps between the polystyrene, says its easy to cut and sandable, lets hope

Pic7

SR 500 polystyrene tail 7

Ready for filling

Pic 8

SR 500 polystyrene tail 8

Top view, shoved some old paper in so I don’t waste foam

Pic 9

SR 500 polystyrene tail 9

Side view after filling with foam

Pic 10

SR 500 polystyrene tail 10

View from the back

Pic 11

SR 500 polystyrene tail 11

Piccie of bike with chassis surgery complete

Pic 12

Showing how much I cut off

Pic 13 and 14

SR 500 polystyrene tail 13

Ain’t she a beaut?!?!? Almost ready for paint
Can you see it though? hey?

The next day was a Sunday and I started cutting the basic shape out.

Posted under SR 500 Project Bike

Don’t know what the TTXGP is? It’s the world first ‘Zero carbon race’ (Read electric) for motorcycles.
Basically it is a race series for electric bikes with the first race held at the Ilse of Man. Get this, there was a team from India that came 3rd in the Open class. INDIA! Surely we have more engineering talent in the good old RSA!?! What makes it worse is it was put together by a couple of university students.

I find it hard to believe that South African universities do not have some form of final year projects with a tangible end product (Do you know of any? If you do let me know, post a comment, something!). I know from trying my own projects that it takes a long time to achieve anything, if you even finish it, but surely someone somewhere has done something without getting the exposure they deserve. Remember the Joule? Thought not!

Any way back to the races http://www.ttxgp.com/ gives you the results and has a breakdown of the teams, with images from the race itself. Interesting to see that biggish budget teams like MotoCzysz (DNF) and Mission Motors (4th) for who I had high expectations did n
ot fare so well. Hopefully they keep at it and I think they are pssibly using the first few races as testing so we will see them improve as the season progresses, this was the first race outing for these machines.

Posted under Electric Vehicles, Motorcycle news, Motorsport news

Not too much to report here but see below

I guess most importantly I cleaned up the dealer details page, which looked a bit rubbish, the other change I made was to make landing pages for the 3 categories, so that there are less messy links at the top of the page. See as follows Motorcycle Stores Motor Car Stores Truck Stores

Other than that I guess it is business as usual, though I am glad to say that I have (FINALLY) been able to register the domain www.sadealers.co.za! Whohooo!

Posted under SA Dealers Updates

It may seem like I have been neglecting the site (ok I have , a bit …), but I have made a few changes that I just never actually announced.

First off I added a search feature which is quite quick and dirty, but works. I would like to extend this in future but don’t seem to be getting the time!

Secondly I have added a few conditions to new ads being placed. Why? Because the site was being filled with so much duplicate ads and irrelevant ads that I have had enough, so now any ad placed for an affiliate web site etc. will be de-activated and continued attempts by a user will lead to thier account being disabled and all their ads removed. The same goes for ads placed in the wrong category, or ads placed in multiple categories.

I also noticed a disturbing trend where people add thier email address in thier ad, this is a VERY BAD IDEA! The largest majority of the traffic to the site comes from search engines, which means that your information is indexable, which in turn means that anyone who writes a script to go through webpages and find email addresses can pick your address up and start spamming you. I added the contact form specifically so to avoid this, in addition I get cc’ed on the contact through the site, meaning that if someone finds a way to send spam through the site I can figure it out an block that too.

Posted under Classifeds Sites Updates