The first of Ford's Ford Ranger Presents videos is out over at their Facebook page. You can view it here.
PRESS RELEASE
Ford Ranger Presents: Built Ford Tough
New Ranger Proves its Durability in Brutal Test of Truck Bed Strength
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Apr. 6, 2016 – It wasn’t your average workday at the under-
construction Bangkok BTS Skytrain transit hub, an expanse of mud- and rut-filled roads,
towering, unfinished concrete structures, and battalions of heavy-duty construction equipment.
In the heart of it all, a team of Ford engineers and a professional rigging crew stood in a half
circle, tensions high, a pallet of wood hanging ominously above the bed of a new Ford Ranger.
“Three, two, one, go!”
On cue, a magnetic latch released the 180 kg pallet of wood from 2.6 meters above the
Ranger’s load box. During the first test of Built Ford Tough – a new online documentary series
from Ford – engineers pushed the resilience and strength of the Ranger’s truck bed and
suspension to the absolute limit. The wood slammed into the bed with the force of 36,150
Newtons – equivalent to a static weight of 3,685 kg, or more than 20 times the original weight of
the stack of wood – and the suspension absorbed the impact with 127 mm of downward
movement, before settling comfortably into its laden state.
The energy from the impact spread through the cargo box structure, compressed the springs
and dampers and then traveled through to the tyres. By the time the initial force reached an
industrial scale beneath the tyres, it registered just 1,500 kg in equivalent static weight: The
Ranger’s load box design, suspension and tyres had absorbed more than 2,000 kg of the
impact force.
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“The new Ranger’s load box really stepped up in today’s test,” said Keong Yip, a Melbourne-
based Ford engineer behind the Ranger’s load box design. “We saw it get repeatedly
pummeled, and it helped prove the Ranger has been exhaustively engineered to be even
tougher than people expect.”
The wood pallet was only the beginning. Engineers dropped an additional 180 kg of concrete
blocks and 180 kg of metal pipes into the cargo bed, registering peaks of more than 1,700 kg
and 1,900 kg on the scale, respectively. Next came a 210 kg stack of concrete tubes latched
together with steel wire, which registered a peak impact on the scale of more than 2,000 kg. The
Ranger took it all in stride.
To top off the grueling test, two “cherry picker” hydraulic lifts raised up above the Ranger, and a
thunderstorm of cement sacks brought the cargo weight to the maximum payload of 1,100 kg.*
Once properly secured, the truck drove off fully laden without any issues – all in a day’s work for
the new Ford Ranger.
Tough done smarter
The cargo box in every truck is reinforced with crossmembers to help provide strength and
stability when handling heavy loads, but the Ranger was engineered with an innovative
structure that improves strength and durability. The design fully integrates the crossmembers
with the sidewalls to deliver improved strength and resilience when dealing with heavy loads –
even those dropped from far above.
“The inspiration behind this design was actually the ribcage of a whale,” said Yip. “Each
crossmember functions like a single rib bone, and we’ve connected them together using the
chassis frame, in much the same way that the spine ties the ribs together, to form a complete
and strengthened overall structure.”
At the front of the box, the crossmember runs up the sidewalls all the way to the top, and at the
back a crossmember extends fully into the rear pillars and is solidly welded at all points. Of the
three central crossmembers, two are semi-integrated into the sidewalls. Finally, the overall
structure is stabalised by welding on sheet metal panels.
No detail was too small to overlook. The Ranger’s bed is made of high-strength steel and the
corrugations were designed to be wider and deeper, which maximises stiffness while reducing
the thickness and weight of the steel panel. This also helps reduce fuel consumption along the
way.
Over the lifetime of the vehicle, two areas of the cargo box are generally subjected to more
punishing stresses: the front corners near the cab, as drivers tend to push heavy loads toward
the front; and the rear mounting points, which see increased stress due to their location at the
end of the truck where there is more frame movement.
At the front, engineers incorporated novel reinforcing brackets – referred to as “frog brackets”
during development, as they look similar to a squatting frog – that work with the front
crossmember to provide extra support to the front corners of the floor. In five key areas – on
each side directly behind and at the center of the wheel wells, and a horizontal area directly
behind the cabin – the floor is further reinforced by double rows of spot welds. This technique
improves the durability of the floor, and utilises the same principle that makes double-stitched
jeans more resilient to wear and tear.
2For news releases, related materials and high-resolution photos and video, visit www.media.ford.com
Follow at www.facebook.com/FordMalaysia or www.youtube.com/FordMsia
Instead of the multiple steel plates often used to form the rear mounting points to the frame, the
Ranger employs two unique brackets integrated with the rear crossmember to manage heavy
loads more effectively. Located at the rear on the left and right side of the bed – and bearing a
striking resemblance to TIE fighter spacecraft from the Star Wars films – the brackets help
transmit the stress from heavy loads into the entire cross-section of the crossmember, including
the vertical portions integrated into the truck’s sidewalls.
“The reality is that a Ranger is going to see a lifetime of hard work, so we needed to be sure the
cargo box was ready to handle the high stresses of repeated, heavy-duty use,” said Yip.
“Today’s test proved out everything we did during development: This is one tough truck.”
Check out this episode at: Ford Malaysia Facebook Page
# # #
Editor’s note: Maximum payload varies by vehicle specification. Check with local Ford dealers
for details.
Built Ford Tough - Heavy DropThousands of pieces working together form the basis of strength and stability. The Ford Ranger's payload design is no exception. Watch what happens when the Ranger catches serious weight from 2.6 metres above the truck bed. #BuiltFordTough – For more, go to: http://ford.to/1X26BG7
Posted by Ford Malaysia on Wednesday, 6 April 2016
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