Ford Aluminum Body

I have looked at some of the responses on this fire departments Facebook page with many claiming it had been photo shopped. Maybe is was, I don't know. A friend posted it on my Facebook page. It appears that it has surfaced widely within the last few days because many of the Facebook responses are within a few days.

Here is a response from the the FD yesterday: "This pic was posted for informational purposes to show firefighters how the aluminum alloy body reacts in fire. As for how the fire started it is unknown but looking at burn pattern of pics fire traveled from rear passenger area in the pick up box and moved forward toward the driver side.

Here is another response from yesterday: "Aluminum melts at a lower temp then steel approx 1221 f the alloy bumps it’s up to 1400 and steel melts at around 2600 degrees it’s just meant as information for firefighters for safety reasons and it will take a while for the vehicle to get to complete melting point like that....Has no impact on their safety ratings at all."

One poster posted this:

https://www.sae.org/publications/technical-papers/content/2017-01-1355/.

I am not going to pay $28. to read the report but to the right of the $28.00 is the link to preview the document. Not much information.

travelnutz wrote:
Charlie D.Not a monster at all, just revealing the facts. Stainless steel doesn't burn either!!!

I understand that and trying to bring a smile on faces. Learned a lot from the posts but with my age and memory won't remember most of it. But, that O.K.. That's what exchanges of information is about.

womps wrote:
This picture was posted before here or on another forum. It was determined the picture is photoshopped. Yes aluminum melts. But look at the picture closely, front door melted and 3 inches away not even the paint is blistered on the front fender. The rubber at the end of the running board is totally intact. Rubber is going to melt long before aluminum.

i thought it looked a bit off, backgrounds wrong ,colours ,ya photoshopy

As opposed to other brands being salvageable?

This picture was posted before here or on another forum. It was determined the picture is photoshopped. Yes aluminum melts. But look at the picture closely, front door melted and 3 inches away not even the paint is blistered on the front fender. The rubber at the end of the running board is totally intact. Rubber is going to melt long before aluminum.

Technology...AKA "Laws of Physics" discussions here goes in circles...

Look up "galvanic action", "how batteries work", "chemistry of a battery", "water conductivity", "water resistance", ETC and follow the footnote reference links on all of those sites

Just because a designer/engineer did the work, does it mean they got it right.

Take my GMT400 1996 Suburban (all GMT400's) with rear AC. They designed it with aluminum tubing that mated via flare joints to copper tubing.

Sounds like nothing major, right?

Well it was found that those flare joints could NOT be undone without breaking one or both tubes...because of galvanic action welded themselves together



There are tons of designs out there where they screwed up by not understanding galvanic action


Another is DeathCool (DexCool or OATs) coolant. Just by the way OATs works..left acid in the coolant. It is to strip all metal to allow the organics to plate a protective coating.

But...stripping off metal will then have metal floating around in the coolant...and not all the same metal, but a mixture of whatever to form a battery in the cooling system (galvanic action)

Just look up the diagnostic HOW2's on OATs and HOATs based coolant systems. Some will have a sensitive DOM (digital ohm meter) and if the votage is above a certain level...cleanse and change out the OATs/HOATs coolant...the why is that with the dissimilar metals being connected via conductive coolant...makes a battery that will erode the cooling system...even rubber hoses...

What's the problem??? The grille, emblem, headlights, front bumper, and front tires look fine!

Charlie D.

Not a monster at all, just revealing the facts. Salt corrodes most common metals and lots of other materials used as affordability of purchasing a medium to high production product is ultra important. Boats are low volume product at best or may be one of a kind and are very expensive to make and thus very expensive to purchase. Service lifetime of a reasonably constructed boat is in many decades while a vehicle is normally 1-2 decades depending on where it is/driven and what care and maintenance it's had.

Many may not remember or have not known due to age Stainless Steel production car bodies being made and sold. DeLorean DMC-12, made from 1981-1983 (8,583 made) was a more recent one and it was not primed nor painted and of course never rusted. Yes, the engines and driveline still wore out and the interior finally rotted or shredded and the plastic and rubber parts finally rotted or fell off but the body sheet stainless just needed a good washing and still shined like new brushed stainless and had no corrosion at nearly 40 years old.

All you needed was a lot of money to buy one!

Aluminum is not stainless steel and doesn't salt or even a dissimilar metal touching it or a slight electrical current passing thru it exposed to the elements but it is light in weight and a lot cheaper than stainless steel. A compromise!

Stainless steel doesn't burn either!!!

Charlie D. wrote:
The picture that I was unable to post was an aluminum body F-150 that had caught on fire. It is from the Spirit Lake FD of North Dakota. It can be found on their Facebook page; Spiritlakefire50. Scroll down to March 21, 2017. Perhaps one of you can post it.

My attempt

Yikes. 48 responses and not one picture of the truck whose picture I was unable to post. Have a created a monster?