Ford and Chevy get all twisted up

In Blair nebraska I saw a car lot with thousand or more steel bodied vehicles that all looked like moonscape. A vicious hailstorm with baseball sized hail and high winds. Steel or aluminum they would have been creamed.

Terryallan wrote:

tuna fisher wrote:
Still don't like that idea, dent very easy. Can you imagine what a shopping cart will do? More than a scratch I bet.

Dude. You do know it's NOT beer can aluminum... Right? you do know passenger jets are made of aluminum. and I believe the highest end RVs like Airstream are made from aluminum.
You should not be afraid of aluminum. As for dents. No one fixes dents any more. They just replace the body part with a new one. Less trouble, and less expensive.

Is that Ford truck made of same aluminium as the jets??

I'd think the jet would be bit stronger better grade,who knows?

I've seen an Airstream roof and front damaged by hail so bad it looked like a surface of the moon LOL. And totaly impossible to fix cheaply..

brholt wrote:
Not to cause trouble :B but some people aren't very happy with boxed frames:
Boxed frame rust

There are plenty of holes openings to spray undercoating oil even on the inside of GM boxed frames,,
I use only one spray can of Rust Check before each winter and haven't a frame rust yet in over 20 years of driving here..

brholt wrote:
Not to cause trouble :B but some people aren't very happy with boxed frames:

Boxed frame rust

There was another online picture of a Chevy frame breaking in two when it was lifted onto a hoist. There is no doubt that the boxed frame can, and will, rust from the inside. The inside doesn't get coated with rust protection and that really creates a place where rust will thrive. There is no doubt that a boxed frame has more resistance to twisting, but that only becomes a real issue if you plan on subjecting your frame to some serious angles with a heavy load on it. If you are doing that, you need to be concerned with over stressing the axles. The frames are made to twist. I have built many trailers with both structural channel and rectangular tubing. I prefer the structural channel, not because of the twisting but because they are easier to completely coat with paint and they are more forgiving when welding on them. The rectangular tubing can warp easier when you weld on them, but they are easier to fit the pieces since most cuts are square, whereas channel needs to be tapered to fit the crossmembers which is a lot more work.

jimh425 wrote:
I don't really care if my frame flexes or not, and also don't care if it is a few pounds lighter or gets slightly better mpg. It's fun from an academic argument perspective, but most trucks have been quite good for the past 15 years, and there have been very few advances for the past 10 years.

I think the F-150 aluminum body saves about 700 lbs, which is little more than few pounds... and I doubt it has anything to do with frame flexing.

Another large advancement has been the CAN bus, and ECM/TCM matching. My current F-150 has no mechanical throttle. The cruise control and accelerator are all completely handled by the ECM.

It is only getting more interesting... Mercedes is speccing a 7 speed auto to get a four-banger in the Sprinter to be able to handle such a heavy vehicle, and Fiat has a 9 speed AMT transmission in the works.

Ford's EcoBoost technology is also maturing. At first, it was good for car engines, but proved itself in the F-150, and I would not be surprised to see an EB V-8 in a forthcoming 3/4 to 1 ton. The advantage of this is the engine loses significantly less power at higher elevations.

I think the AMT transmissions will definitely be where future improvements go. Essentially it is a manual gearbox, with the computer handling the clutch and shiftwork.

As for frame twisting, does the 2015 F-150 apply to 3/4 tons and up which are the mainstay for truck campers? I'd say the biggest issue before frame twist ever rears its head the half ton's payload capacity.

jimh425 wrote:
I don't really care if my frame flexes or not, and also don't care if it is a few pounds lighter or gets slightly better mpg. It's fun from an academic argument perspective, but most trucks have been quite good for the past 15 years, and there have been very few advances for the past 10 years.

There have been a LOT of advancements in the last 10-15 years. The biggest one I can think of in trucks is 6 speed automatic transmissions replacing 4 speed automatics. That is an absolutely monumental difference--automatic transmissions haven't gained 50% more gears since the Powerglide was replaced with its predecessor automatics, and that was over 50 years ago.

Not to cause trouble :B but some people aren't very happy with boxed frames:

Boxed frame rust

I like our open "C" channel ladder frame, with boxed frame under the entire engine area. The open C is extremely good a vertical load handling/stability (look at tractors pulling trailers), and is less rigid in torsional dimension (bringing loads over hilly terrain, the C channel torsional flexibility is needed to keep all 4 wheels on the ground, all the while providing exceptional vertical load stability with the C). Open C under the load bed area needs a different leaf spring rate design (just as rear boxed needs a different leaf spring design when compared to open C springing).

...if we ever had to go with a newer truck (God forbid), I would do everything in my power to source a truck/frame with open "C" channel, with ladders under the load-bearing part and engine/tranny of the new truck (I hope this would not have to be an MDt or Class 8 !)...

When you're talking about a truck in the class of the F150, "a few (hundred) pounds lighter" is HUGE because the limiting factor on these has always been payload payload payload. Now you are looking at nearly 2000lbs of payload capacity in a typical truck instead of a hard-to-find-without-ordering, stripped-down model. You can tow that 7000lb bunkhouse with the 1000lb tongue weight, and bring along your wife, the three teenage linebacker sons, and the St. Bernard without putting the truck several hundred pounds over GVWR and probably exceeding the rear axle rating too.

When your F150 is also your daily driver, "slightly better MPG" adds up too. If you're only driving the truck to haul the RV somewhere it's not such a big deal, sure.