'04 F-150 - magnesium??

[Jay911]

Has anyone heard this little tidbit about the construction of the new line of F-series trucks by Ford? I saw this on another message board:

CAPTLPOL on Batlabs wrote:

In the interests of lightening the overall curb weight of the new generation F-150 series vehicles, Ford has substituted die-cast magnesium as the material of choice for its core support assembly. As some will recall, the physical characteristics of magnesium are light weight coupled with exceptional rigidity (for it's mass). Ford saved almost 20lb. with this substitution.

Pros - light weight, stiffness, fewer bolt on parts due to intricacy of die-casting Vs stamping
Cons - Relatively expensive, extremely flammable.

Magnesium fed fires are almost impossible to extinguish with conventional fire control measures. Any underhood fire involving a magnesium part will result in a temperature intensity that would suggest outside incendiary accelerants, but would not necessarily be the case.

Could make for some interesting truck fires next time out!

--j.
Jason Low

[radioguy]

Looks like it is so:

http://www.magnesium.com/w3/news-room/news_open.php?news=1323

http://normac.teknologisk.dk/9970

[Tanker06]

Whoo-hooo!! Complimentary fireworks display coming to a
truck fire in a neighborhood near you!!

[SamsonFCDES]

Did you know that a VW beetles engine case and transmission case are made from magnesium?

You only torc the bolts to 17lbs because it expands. If you torced to 70+ pounts you will strip out the case.

VW fires are neat.

[nmfire]

Ford realized they made a mistake. They decided an even lighter weight solution would be to mold the truck out of C4.

[Tanker06]

Originally posted by nmfire
They decided an even lighter weight solution would be to mold the truck out of C4.

Renaming them "Pinto II"?

J

[ThNozzleman]

I know the Mustangs use it, in and around the steering column; found that out the hard way, early one morning.

[PEIPat]

PRODUCT INDORSMENT - SORRY!

So far, I've got all of ya beat. Ever try to put out an M113 APC? No? How about a set of brake shoes on a C-130 Herc or a 727? Now that sucks...OK, we're ready for the next dump truck load of sand...!
Actually, the guys from 'MI-CELL' that make 'F-500' (no relation to the Ford 'F' series family) recently showed off their product and what it can do here in PEI. What that stuff does to class 'D' or metal fires is absolutely amazing! If you haven't seen it yet, look for it in a booster tank near you! This stuff may make the words '...requesting a second alarm...' obsolete. Sorry for the product indorsement here, I don't do that very often, but this stuff is pretty neat.

Pat

[elswappo]

Where's the "core support assembly" located in the truck?

[FightingDevil]

On a kinda side note...

I just saw a commercial yesterday for the new F-150 touting how quiet it is. Something along the lines of "the quietest pickup ever", yadda, yadda, yadda. So, they put a sound meter in the cab (at least in the commercial) and parked it in the lab in front of a bunch of speakers playing outside 'noise'. Lo and behold, you don't hear any of it...

Trouble is: I noticed that one of outside noises in the commercial was a siren and a Q!!! And you don't hear it in the cab!!! YIKES!!! It's so quiet that you can't hear an EMERGENCY VEHICLE APPROACHING YOU!!

My F-I-L turns to me and says: "man, that's quiet". I turn to him and say: "Yup, and you wonder why people don't move out of the way of the fire engines!!"

I know that we've all discussed the noise filtering today's cars have, I just was a little irritated that they decided to use an emergency vehicle siren as a test and especially in thier commercials! (BTW..my wife drives a Ford, I drive a Mercury and my F-I-L works for Visteon (formerly Ford Electronics), so I am NOT anti-Ford)

Gotta Love Technology!!

[radioguy]

Originally posted by elswappo
Where's the "core support assembly" located in the truck?

From what I understand its the radiator support assembly, they took a whole bunch of parts that held up the radiator and made 1 magnesium casting to replace them.

The 04's also have magnesium dash supports, and other magnesium parts under the hood so you will have it both undre the hood and in the cab.

[Jay911]

Re: On a kinda side note...

Originally posted by FightingDevil
I noticed that one of outside noises in the commercial was a siren and a Q!!! And you don't hear it in the cab!!! YIKES!!!

I saw that too.. makes you want to write Ford and point that out, see if they realize what they're promoting.

I wonder what it will take for someone to mass-market a device that goes inside the car, alerting the driver of nearby emergency vehicles, like some radar detectors do now? I figure that's about the only way we're going to see this problem defeated, because no one is going to make their cars "less soundproof" so people can hear sirens. :P

--j.
Jason Low

[Fire304]

Re: Re: On a kinda side note...

Originally posted by Jay911
I wonder what it will take for someone to mass-market a device that goes inside the car, alerting the driver of nearby emergency vehicles

Actually its alreay on the market. I've seen two different versions, one is a dedicated reciever and transmitter, the car has a red light on the dash which flashes as a transmitter equiped EV approaches. The problem is that all cars need the receiver for it to work.

The other is a low power AM/FM transmitter which broadcasts on all frequencies, you place it in the EV and when you get to about 500' of a car (assuming the radio is on and not the CD or XM) the car's radio plays your prerecorded message such as "Emergency vehicle approaching, pull to the right!" Its even FCC approved.

[ff7134]

I think we need to re-record that message, it should say,

"Hey !@#$%^& Emergency Vehicle Approaching, Get the %^&* Out of the way."