Aussie Ford F-150 “better than left-hand drive”

The development team behind the Australian right-hand drive Ford F-150 full-size pick-up insists it is a better vehicle in several key aspects than the left-hand drive original.

And they say it’s an achievement predicted by Ford’s global product development and quality boss, Jim Baumbick.

Senior engineers involved in the program highlighted steering feel, climate control performance and towbar strength as improved by the local RHD conversion (or remanufacturing) process.

Completed F-150s have started rolling out of a new facility developed and run by RMA Automotive Australia ahead of their arrival in Ford Australia dealerships in November.

Its parent company, Thai-based RMA, won a competitive tender for the business against the likes of the Walkinshaw Group and Premcar.

The remanufacturing of the right-hand drive F-150 includes 500 new parts and recalibration of key systems including 18 of 30 modules in an all-new wiring harness.

Engineering development has been completed by RMAAA and its contracted partner Segula Technologies, working with Ford’s Australian product development centre and the F-Series homeroom in the USA.

“Our agreement says we will be as good as left-hand drive. What we have taken on personally is to be better than that,” said RMAAA general manager Trevor Negus.

“As you would expect anyone to do in any project, reach for as much as you can.”

RMAAA’s ambition was endorsed by Baumbick and Ford’s global quality executive director Josh Haliburton during a visit to Melbourne in April to view progress of the global first factory-backed F-150 conversion program.

“They said we have the opportunity to build the highest quality F-150s in the world,” said Tom Dohrmann, F-150 Assistant Chief Program Engineer, Ford Australia.

The phrase ‘better than left-hand drive’ popped up more than once as engineers working on the RHD program walked media through the process during a tour of RMAAA’s Mickleham facility last week.

The steering rack is a key example of a necessary change that engineers say has led to improvement.

The RHD F-150 adopts the steering rack from the Ranger Raptor because it fits efficiently into the engine bay. It combines with a new intermediate shaft, a new adaptor bracket and F-150 left-hand drive tie-rod ends.

“We have a bespoke right-hand drive calibration developed by the Ford steering team at the Ford [You Yangs] proving ground,” explained RMAAA head of product development Chris Fostineo.

“The steering feel particularly on-centre is better in right-hand drive than left-hand drive.”

The steering is the only area where the local engineering group is claiming a dynamic improvement over the LHD. Other chassis settings such as shocks and springs have not changed or been tuned compared to LHD.

The heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system (HVAC) is an all-new mirror of the LHD system. Testing at Ford’s You Yangs ACART (Advanced Centre for Automotive Research and Testing) complex has proved it provides superior performance in “certain areas”, said Tom Dohrmann, F-150 Assistant Chief Program Engineer, Ford Australia.

“In Australia as a hot climate, as opposed to the US which is more of a mild climate, we are getting a fantastic amount of performance out of this climate system,” he added.

The towbar was improved because of more severe testing required by Australian Design Rules compared to US standards, Dohrmann explained.

“We tested a left-hand drive towbar and it fell part,” he said. “So this has been developed specifically for Australian requirements and conditions.

“It’s 4.5-tonne rated and comes with a 70mm towball from the factory.

“Towing in the US is different because they do a lot of load levelling there, which we don’t have that requirement here.

“We have a much more severe dynamic test as part of our ADR that we have to meet. We have to redesign the towbar and it is substantially stronger in Australia.”

Other areas the engineers listed as being improved from LHD to RHD were reduced steering wheel and pedal vibration and better body paint finishing.

The most expensive new part in the RHD F-150 conversion is the cast magnesium cross-vehicle beam that acts as a brace between the A-pillars and holds up the instrument panel. Sourced from a Chinese supplier, the tooling alone costs more than $1 million.

“We could have gone down the path of a fabricated steel part which would have been a lot easier and a lot cheaper,” said Dohrmann.

“But that would have departed dramatically from our goal of equivalency and wouldn’t have enabled us to maintain all the important attributes of durability, safety, NVH and dynamics, which this part provides us with.”

The switch of the cabin from left- to right-hand drive was also a challenge because it is not symmetrical.

“The front dash apron… is a 35mm off-set and the transmission tunnel is off-set 35mm to the right-hand side,” explained Fostineo. “This is not just a mirror job. To make this work in right-hand drive we have to re-engineer the entire front-half of the vehicle.

“When the body comes in it is stripped back and we effectively cut out significant parts of the dash like Swiss cheese and bond back in new parts.

“There is not one weld in this body at all. It is all structurally bonded and riveted from factory and we have carried that bonding and riveting through.”

While the local engineers are proud of the vehicle they have developed, they admit the amount of scrappage being generated by remanufacturing process needs to be reduced.

Vehicles are arriving complete from the US and parts superfluous to the process such as the dashboard, towbar and XLT tail-lights are being thrown out.

“There is a bit of waste,” conceded Dohrmann. “There are things we have no option but to scrap. I know RMA is working on recycling whatever it can.

“The last time we were out at RMA there was a long discussion around recyclability and re-use. I know they are working with some third parties to find out of what is being scrapped can be recycled.”

The production line, located in the northern suburb of Mickleham, has the ability to remanufacture 20 F-150s per day on a single shift, which equates to about 5000 examples per year.

The 21,000 square-metre leased Mickleham site is a converted warehouse about the size of the MCG. It sits next to a new Ford Australia parts warehouse and only kilometres from the defunct Ford manufacturing site at Campbellfield.

RMAAA has 250 employees on site, with 200 of them working on the assembly line, which has 65 individual stations.

It takes around 22 hours over three working days for each F-150 to be converted.

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