Ford aluminum truck beds are strong how?

[PhysAssist]

Many have said you should not treat a new truck, or any truck like that. I agree, but it happens. I still remember the son of the owner of the company I would soon work for. He was sent to get a load of cast iron parts in a brand spanking new 1976 Ford F-150. He was just a couple years older than his cousins and I. He was on his way back with castings and drove by to see us. He couldn't stand it and just had to show us how to "back it down" and turn out of the end of our road sideways. Casting marks were all over the bed. At better than 100 lbs. each, it made the inner bed look old real quick. My dad would have whipped me good for a stunt like that.

I'm sure he wasn't the first or last to do something like that with a pickup.

Was that an Al bed or an Fe one?

 

[PhysAssist]

Corrosion? wonder why my 20+ year old aluminum boat, (used mostly in salt water) still looks like new?

As is my 35 y/o rowboat, except for all the dings, nicks, and dents- none of which have any corrosion present, in contrast to the galvanized sheet metal on other vehicles I have owned, which once dinged or creased, then rusted rapidly- as did the steel bed in my Chevy S10 AND my [current] 2001 Ford F350.

 

[dstig1]

It's the same old advertising BS all the manufacturers do, but no one here is really surprised by that statement, if you are honest. I believe what they are really showing is that the elongation to failure is lower with the aluminum that Ford is using vs the "high strength" steel GM is using. So a quick check on Matweb shows me that 4130 (a common alloy often called high strength steel) has elongation at failure of 25%. 6061-T6 is 12%. So yes, the aluminum is going to break at a lower deformation than that steel will (like half). Do I know what either bed is actually made from? NO! But these are common materials that would seem to be likely candidates. If anyone knows the actual alloys for both, they should be easy to look up to get accurate numbers.

This is the reality of any engineering design work: Pick your compromises. Ford went for light weight for fuel economy reasons (blame Mr Obama). It sounds like GM is headed that way soon enough too. Can't fight Washington... So you pick your critical design attributes (in this case, weight) and figure out your tradeoffs that you (and your customers) can live with. No free lunch in design, no matter what you do.

 

[aircommuter]

maybe the word corrosion is just in the dictionary waiting for a use. I can tell you that my best friend was and I.A for United in SF, he inspected the aluminum parts with an eddy current machine because they could find the corrosion before it made repairs so costly. The current flowing between to pieces of metal is corrosion. It occurs most commonly with dissimilar metals. The first year that the 777 came out they were all grounded because of corrosion in the galley from flight attendants spilling OJ. so it does happen. As for different grades for different metals that is true, given that as agreed, why did they use a soft version in the bed? You can bet on the Ford engineers or any other maker to design as cheaply as possible for their maximum profit. As for the twin I beam, I worked for a fleet that had several of them they were a truck that wandered excessively and there was no way to align them except for bending the axle, they also wore tires excessively. When you mention that others had ball joints at the time and you think it was a poor system compared to the I beam you should be careful as Ford has ball joints now. Those aluminum boats if used very much have their share of fatigue cracks. My steel boat does not have any. I designed it to last as I was not selling it for a profit and the cost would not probably work out if I had to have it built by a crew of high dollar workers.

As for your salt water boat question, the ocean salt concentration is not high enough, when salt is used on roads and it builds up in trapeed areas then the water evaporates leaving a high concentration you get rust and corrosion. The metal is returning to it's natural state, iron ore ,ferrite and for aliminum bauxite.

 

[KennyG]

The twin I-beam "bend the axle" alignment approach seemed weird but it worked. We had a couple of twin I-beam trucks that went over 100K with no issues. The ball joint and strut systems today are great and very durable. However, in 1965 you seldom were able to go 100K on a passenger car ball joint, let alone a truck. The only reason people were glad Chevy went to ball joints is that their old king pin straight axle system would wear out in 50K miles.

 

[Egon]

I can recall the I beam suspension. Bending for a wheel alignment was interesting. They went through a lot of bushings as I recall. Front ends always seemed out of alignment. Those trucks did see some rough service though.

 

[CDN Farm Boy]

Time moves on and there are better solutions today. 20 or 30 or 40 years from now we'll probably have some incredible carbon fiber composite trucks but for now it looks like Ford has the lead again. .

Or 10 years ago. Toyota has had composite beds for a decade in the Tacomas. Ford in the lead? Hardly.

 

[Ford850]

Or 10 years ago. Toyota has had composite beds for a decade in the Tacomas. Ford in the lead? Hardly.

Ford had composite beds in the Sport Trac 15 years ago. I liked it, but every material has it's advantages and disadvantages.

 

[ArlyA]

In the fall, we purchased a new model UTV made by can-am, called the Defender. It has a HDPE box and liked it so far. Thats a tough, strong plastic in the family of polyethylene. Love that stuff. We do use it as a truck.

Yup. make the bottom and side walls out of heavy gauge polyethylene, it would be indestructible.

 

[CDN Farm Boy]

Ford had composite beds in the Sport Trac 15 years ago. I liked it, but every material has it's advantages and disadvantages.

I'd forgotten about the Sport Trac...I don't really consider it a truck anyway. But now that I think of it, the Avalanche had composite or something floor doesn't it?