Zathrus~SPARTA~ Posted February 18, 2015 Share Posted February 18, 2015 (edited) Hey Halli I saw you mention you have a 95 Ford Bronco. My neighbor has 1980 Bronco out here in AZ. It is in mint condition. Very nice truck. Halli, as an Engineer in the Auto Industry, you know things... hear about things.... and see things that most consumers never see. I must tell you about this so you can prepare yourself properly for the unlikely event of a rollover accident in your Bronco. This is NOT a Ford bashing post. To be frank, Fords pass all other tests with flying colors usually and do very well in frontal and side impacts. This is a post to relay important need to know information for owners of Ford trucks in a certain range of model years. What I am going to tell you about existed in all Ford Trucks and SUV's. This would be true from around 1990 through 2005 I know for sure. I am fairly certain that at one point in recent history Ford engineering made an adjustment to this problem with excellent results. But there are about 15 or 20 years of Ford trucks with serious roof weakness at the A-pillars (front quarter of roof). The 1995 thru 2005 Ford Explorer is the worst of them, but all their trucks had the same A-pillar design "issue". What happened: Ford was having an issue with a high percentage of the rollover accidents reported to NHTSA happening in Ford Trucks. I believe they decided internally that it was a combination of things with the "double wishbone" front suspension being the biggest culprit. They began to explore ways to stem the number of rollovers they were seeing. Sometime in the early 1990's their Engineering team revised the design of their truck and SUV cabs to remove weight from the roof line. They did this because the suspension/center of gravity design in their Trucks was allowing too many rollovers so they knew they had to lower the center of gravity. This required the removal of weight from high in the truck. Adding weight lower in the truck would have hurt fuel economy significantly and cause a bunch of other problems, so their best bet was to remove weight where ever they could at high points in the chassis. What they did was perfectly legal, although I personally would have refused to do it, and been fired for that. They removed significant roof structure that was not needed to pass the NHTSA "Roll over test". The trucks still pass the test. The problem is not really with Ford except in a moral sense, what they did was fine technically from a legal view point. The problem is more the test is inadequate. I will explain below. First the Test. They take a finished vehicle, put a hydraulic ram against the top of the Drivers side A-pillar. They push on the A-pillar with the force of the gross weight of the truck. This translates into a "1 G" load on the A-pillar. To pass, the A-pillar must not deflect more than 1.5 inches, and when they release the pressure on the ram the pillar must return to it's original position. The windshield of course must be replaced after this test as it usually explodes about half way through. All Fords pass this test. However, every safety advocacy group in existence has said from the start it is an inadequate test to protect occupants. Most Engineering teams agree and completely ignore this test as they design their A-pillars to absorb a much larger load than required by the test. To be more specific, any Engineer will tell you, in a rollover, the A-pillars are going to see much more than 1 G. They are likely to absorb several G's in a rollover at over 35 mph. The result in real life rollover accidents has been in Ford Trucks the A-pillars always fold back to the B-Pillar (pillar behind the front Door) during those model years in question. This is why so many people were killed in Fords when Firestone had that big tire problem. The roof collapsed on them causing severe head trauma. This started to appear in lawsuits, because the fact was, the Firestone tires were failing on many makes of trucks... but those other makes did not have the A-pillars folding back to the B-pillar 99% of the time. This is why there are still pages of attorneys on line who specialize in "Ford Explorer Roll Over Litigation" or Ford F-150 rollover attorneys. Ford did dampen the blow a bit by pointing out their trucks do pass the required NTSA test, however most decent Attorneys continue to win huge lawsuits against them if the A-pillars did fold back in the accident. They are winning these lawsuits because common sense and physics pretty much say the test requirement is insufficient to protect the occupants in the front seats. Most of this has been kept relatively quiet somehow. But it has been happening for a very long time. I think you will see what I am describing by looking at the photo's below. 1993 Exlporer 1999 Ford Explorer Sport (2 door) 2000's model Mercedes SUV after violent rollover on New Jersey Turnpike. Late 1990's GMC 2001 Ford F-150 The pictures although only a few I think do show you the difference. That GMC protected its front seat occupants, as did the Mercedes and many others. Yes there are cases where other makes have the A-pillars fold back, however it is not as common in other makes. It is a very common thing to see in Fords of that era. Therefore: It is very important the owners of Ford Trucks know this. If your in a rollover, you need to lay down across the front seats as it starts going over if you possibly can. This is because the front edge of the roof is about to come crashing down as the A-pillars fold backward. Failure to get out of the way is likely going to have your head smashed between the top of the seat and the roof/pillar assembly. That is never a good thing. Passengers in back seats of Ford SUV's and extended cabs have nothing to fear. The B-pillars in Fords have always remained robust, so the roof stays in place over the rear seats. This only involves the front seats because it only involves the A-pillars. However, I can also recommend doing whatever you can to just keep it wheels down... That of course avoids the issue all together. I should note that all trucks and SUV's, especially 4x4 models are much more likely to roll in a violent maneuver than cars. This is the nature of the beast. You cannot have great ground clearance and a super low center of gravity at the same time. Edited February 19, 2015 by Zathrus~SPARTA~ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gon5~SPARTA~ Posted February 19, 2015 Share Posted February 19, 2015 Interesting point Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Athlon64~SPARTA~ Posted February 19, 2015 Share Posted February 19, 2015 (edited) He has a Bronco full size I think. Sorry- another reason I won't own one. The problem with the Bronco is the short wheel base, When having to lock up the brakes due to a idiot on the road, it will spin out if it doesn't have anti lock brakes and that will lead to a roll over. Full size Blazers had the same problem with that type truck, short wheel base 4 wheel drive high center of gravity. Or you could have a front tire blow out at highway speed, Prey to the gods you get it stopped straight. You want to talk about something that's all over the road, loose a front tire at 70mph. your hair will be grey after that one. Edited February 19, 2015 by Athlon64~SPARTA~ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zathrus~SPARTA~ Posted February 19, 2015 Author Share Posted February 19, 2015 (edited) Your are absolutely correct about blowing a tire at over 70mph. I had this experience. I hit a small chunk of steel or something (I could not see it until it was too late to miss it) going about 80 mph out here in AZ on the interstate. I have to tell you, even though I have had extensive training in maintaining and regaining control of an out of control vehicle on test tracks, I had my hands full for almost a minute. It was extremely touchy and kept trying to take off to the right... Knowing I had to be very careful in correcting those sudden lurches to the right or I would lose total control, I think I must have gained several grey hairs during the event. I corrected direction with the equivalent of twitching my fingers a bit... I knew any additional input would have sent me around in a spin. In addition touching the brakes would have caused a loss of control... so I had to coast down... which is why it took almost a minute. I guess because I had that training... me and my wife did not become a statistic of the variety nobody wants to be. But it did require everything I knew to keep that vehicle on the road and in control. nothing likes losing a front tire suddenly at 80mph. Edited February 19, 2015 by Zathrus~SPARTA~ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Halli~SPARTA~ Posted February 19, 2015 Share Posted February 19, 2015 This is a replica and I never drive over much of 70mph , new tires 33.50-15 BFG AT no lift and I do know of the top heavyness but I try to drive safe and slow as a matter of fact I drive as if I have a wedding cake in bed it is an old habit of selling Heavy truck parts and having a full size Cat, Cummins or Mercedez MBE in the bed. The thing about the A pillar is also it is a 6000 lbs. vehicle and that has to be considered. As for being Ford It was not built with myTax dollars, Built in the USA and Ram (Fiat) is built in Mexico owned by the Italians and Gm is a Government made vehicle. Yee haw... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GySgt~SPARTA~ Posted February 20, 2015 Share Posted February 20, 2015 I'm into a Nissan titan or a Toyota Tacoma...2016 will be the release of the cummings Diesel in the Nissan Titan go figure ahaha Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zathrus~SPARTA~ Posted February 20, 2015 Author Share Posted February 20, 2015 (edited) Halli, they are very nice trucks. I am not bashing Ford. The fact is most full size 4x4's weigh between 5500 and 6500 pounds. My Toyota FJ Cruiser is a "midsized 4x4" and it weighs 5200 pounds. But building the A-pillar to only be able to absorb 1 G of load was a mistake. They knew that and have since corrected it. In accident testing with rollovers, they measure over 30 G's many times on the A-pillars. In addition, they discovered the double wishbone front suspension was causing them issues in several areas that increased the likelihood of a roll over. So they have now eliminated that suspension also. As a friend, I wanted to tell you about this so you know to ly down across the seats if it ever starts to go over on you. I do not want to see a friend hurt or killed because they were unaware of something that I knew about. I would never forgive myself. In every other category Ford trucks are excellent, comfortable drives and very capable. As for being Ford It was not built with myTax dollars, Built in the USA and Ram (Fiat) is built in Mexico owned by the Italians and Gm is a Government made vehicle. Yee haw... If this is something you put a lot of emphasis on when buying a vehicle, then if you need to buy a full sized truck, you might want to try the Toyota Tundra. They are proudly completely made in Southern Indiana. If you need a Car, The Camry is made in Ohio, Subaru Outback in Northern Indiana, Some Hondas are made in Ohio, and several NIssan's are made right there with you in Tennessee. You see, with a Japanese car maker, their rule when they build a plant is this: All Suppliers must be within a 175 mile radius of the plant if possible. This is because of their "just in time" inventory system that typically delivers the part for a particular car or truck to the manufacturing plant about 1 hour before they need to install it. There are exceptions to their 175 mile rule, but very very few. As a result, there are several "Japanese Manuf. Models" with as high or higher "American Made" content as their "American Manuf. Model" counterparts. So... when they are making them in a State within the USA, most of the car is actually made in that state or surrounding states. While the parent company may be Japanese, they are actually American manufacturers. They tend to reinvest the profits from their plants in the country the plant is in and the suppliers are of course many times American companies since they have to be within 175 miles of the plant. Edited February 20, 2015 by Zathrus~SPARTA~ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Halli~SPARTA~ Posted February 20, 2015 Share Posted February 20, 2015 Car haulers are my best customers, I sell at The Bowling Green Corvette Plant the Smyrna Nissan Plant and the Spring Hill Gm Plant which shall double operations in July with the new Cadillac SUV going online. I knew you were not downing Ford. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Athlon64~SPARTA~ Posted February 21, 2015 Share Posted February 21, 2015 (edited) Well we don't want to bring up the issue of Barbque back PINTO, reguardless of the finance back ground of the car mfgers. those type trucks are heavy and they don't want to stop very well. Really not well suted for highway travel, more for around town. I don't know what the heck these Drivers ed classes are teaching these kids now days on how to drive on the road, from what I have experienced lately these kids on the road as of now are a real threat. Surprised theres not a lot more of them killed. I gess they did not learn of how easy it is to get killed on the road for being stupid. As of what happened to me a few months ago. I gess you can't pull them out of whats left of their car and shoot them in the head on the side of the road, although you really want to, You have to sue them into the stone age. Still waiting for my law sute to be settled. Its getting to the point of having to install a dash cam in my truck, every day a "BONZI" fricken driver cutting in and out of traffic causeing accidents, Running 90-100 mph thru traffic. I will record this crap and send it in to the police to have their Dumb ass's arrested and get them off the highway before they get somebody killed. Edited February 21, 2015 by Athlon64~SPARTA~ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zathrus~SPARTA~ Posted February 21, 2015 Author Share Posted February 21, 2015 Actually dashcams are used in many parts of the world to protect drivers and prosecute bad drivers. They are very cheap now... and if your having those kinds of issues in your area it is probably a good idea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gon5~SPARTA~ Posted February 22, 2015 Share Posted February 22, 2015 Well we don't want to bring up the issue of Barbque back PINTO, reguardless of the finance back ground of the car mfgers. those type trucks are heavy and they don't want to stop very well. Really not well suted for highway travel, more for around town. I don't know what the heck these Drivers ed classes are teaching these kids now days on how to drive on the road, from what I have experienced lately these kids on the road as of now are a real threat. Surprised theres not a lot more of them killed. I gess they did not learn of how easy it is to get killed on the road for being stupid. As of what happened to me a few months ago. I gess you can't pull them out of whats left of their car and shoot them in the head on the side of the road, although you really want to, You have to sue them into the stone age. Still waiting for my law sute to be settled. Its getting to the point of having to install a dash cam in my truck, every day a "BONZI" fricken driver cutting in and out of traffic causeing accidents, Running 90-100 mph thru traffic. I will record this crap and send it in to the police to have their Dumb ass's arrested and get them off the highway before they get somebody killed. https://dashcamtalk.com/ http://www.crutchfield.com/S-LzLr8LeaoZ2/shopsearch/dash_cam.html?awcp=1t1&awcr=39987932003&awdv=c&awkw=dash%20cam&awmt=e&awnw=g http://www.techmoan.com/what-is-the-best-dashcam/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Athlon64~SPARTA~ Posted February 22, 2015 Share Posted February 22, 2015 (edited) It seems to be the drivers that are in late 20s to mid 30s that are causeing all the problems in my area, Are they late for work? Maybe leave earler, did they wacth to much Fast and furious? Did our school system fail them in driver education class? Are they just friggen nuts? Do they understand when they act like a punk ass on the road, a older armed guy like me might pump a round thru their Dumb asses. I don't know, but im sure they will end up in the estimated 50,000 fatalitys reported every year. The bad part is the innocent outher people that get hurt due to a idiot that thinks he can drive like the movie fast a furious. They will end up fast and dead! Edited February 22, 2015 by Athlon64~SPARTA~ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xross Posted March 1, 2015 Share Posted March 1, 2015 Well look at all these old friends talking shop about trucks et al! Hope everyone is well and long time no see! Very nice looking Bronco Halli! My personal favorite color scheme on that model. My wife had a Bronco II in that same color. I'm back in the Midwest (don't ask ;) about 30-40 miles from Kansas City. The up side is the soil here is awesome, particularly coming from the clay fields of North Georgia, and I'm enjoying the peace and quiet of no neighbors within hearing distance, starry skies from no, or very low, light pollution, deer in my back yard, huge old trees, and within reasonable distance to family and friends. Home is where you make it, or so they tell me. Anyway, my brother is a certified crane operator and he was just working on the retrofit of the Ford plant in Kansas City where the trucks (150s anyway) are made. This year's model are, if I understand correctly, using aluminum (likely an alloy) for the body parts. Not sure why it took them so long to shift to a rust-free material as the salt they throw down on the roads around here in the winter is just brutal on everything metal it comes into contact with. Not too much fun going to the car wash in the winter and using the first few dollars to blast the ice off the drains before you can get to washing/rinsing that salt compound off. But if you don't you'll be able to see daylight though your wheel wells in a 'few' years. == on a very sad note their was a fatal accident at the plant a month or four ago. The various trades were coming and going so it was a bit of organized chaos as I understand it. A 'young' man (~35-40) violated safety protocol and took a 'short cut' under a small crane (not sure) but the rigging failed *and* a safety pin intended to prevent such an accident also failed and he lost his life leaving behind a wife, two children, and extended family/friends. All because he wanted to save the 2-3 seconds it would have taken to walk around the load instead of under it. Again, RIP. On the roll over risks .. I drove around in a 1986 CJ-7 through the 'twisties' of No. Ga. for years, fortunately without incident. I luv'd that Jeep, Laredo package in black with gold masking tape and it was the last year before the 'Wranglers' rolled off the line and another era came to a screeching halt. I didn't run huge tires on it but dodging idiots on the highways at ~70 (lol .. more like 85) certainly required a bit of maintaining focus. As to the 'kids' out driving these days .. wtf!! Texting or even having a cellphone within arm's reach should be a free ride to beneath the jail. People can barely drive these days when they are paying attention. There was a young kid (~20) sober as a stone riding his bike back home from his girlfriend's when 'someone' (still unknown) switched lanes to make an exit they were about to miss and clipped the front of the kid's bike .. RIP. Not even sure how to discuss something like that. I rarely ride anymore. Have taken a few weekend runs on various Harley Ultras (baggers) that I can rent (brother owns one) not far from here but dodging cars just took all the fun out of it so I am 'retired' from riding, at least for a while. On a more pleasant note .. I'm ironing the bugs out of a new build I literally just threw together when my trusty, and ancient in computer years, x58 bricked on me. I switched from RoG to a Sabertooth and an i7 4790K with a couple SSDs this time around. I was tempted (greatly) to get an x99 but I just couldn't rationalize it and for what I'm doing this box has more than enough juice. I just set it to run at a modest 4.5 Ghz and 2 Ghz on the old RAM out of the x58 and it seems to be behaving nicely. Also using my first water cooled setup in the form of a cheap all-in-one. Jury is still out on how I feel about it but so far so good. As my 'luck' would have it I also bought a GTX780FTW about 15 minutes before the 980s came out. I thought about jumping through the hoops to swap them out but I've got more horsepower than I will likely use, for now, so didn't bother. Probably a mistake but the 780 is quite a beast and runs a 30" 2560x1600 via Display Port and a 28" 1920x1080 via DVI and never even breaks a sweat. Amazing how quickly the tech continues to progress. When I saw the 4790K had a built in GPU (on die) I felt like I was downgrading to a laptop chip. Wow .. when I'm wrong, I go all the way. These things are quite quick .. I'm impressed and kinda liking the ST board. UEFI now instead of BIOS. Can't blink without the tech flying past ya it seems. Zeno, if you see this thank you for the hint about disabling a few unwanted, and uninvited, services on my brother's PC some time back. Between that and the Group Policy Editor I'm finally learning how to get this boxes of bits to understand who's running the show. ;) I hope everyone is very, very, well and I've got some fantastic memories of all of you and the many romps we had on this or that game du jour. Be well and my best to all, always, to you and yours. Belated Happy 2015. March already .. somebody slow this ride down a bit will ya? lol Cheers!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zeno~SPARTA~ Posted March 1, 2015 Share Posted March 1, 2015 Great to hear from you again!! Best wishes to you as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Halli~SPARTA~ Posted March 1, 2015 Share Posted March 1, 2015 Good to hear from you brother come around more often. A few games are played daily and more on the weekends as usual, the current top posts pretty much says it all hope to see ya soon. Ken Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
custard~SPARTA~ Posted March 1, 2015 Share Posted March 1, 2015 Wow good to hear from you bud. My life is so different to when we last spoke I actually have a real job and it involves real work Luggage thinks this is hilarious. I have also been lucky enough to have built a new machine for gaming it freaking flies I seriously wonder what Arma II would behave like fancy a few missions? Ian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xross Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 Thanks for the kind words my friends. Halli, how've you been bud? I'll have a look at the current favs to see what everyone is into these days. Custard, so you built a new rig? Sounds like a speed demon! There's some new(ish) space game I was thinking about, the name escapes me but it's quite vast with various ships and mission set option. It's been so long since I've played Arma but have some fond memories so I'll put it on the to-do list. I probably would have been content with my old x58 but I took a very near proximity lightning strike which just wreaked havoc on all my gear. And I run 4 or 5 UPS setups .. oh well. I don't have everything sorted yet, are you running a Z87/97, X99, AMD? Z97 BIOS is sooo different I feel like a total newb. May just run stock for now and shorten my list a bit. I'll try to make a point to hop on TS if I wouldn't be interrupting once I get TS re-installed. Be well everyone and I'll hope to be able to drop in before too terribly long. Thanks again Zeno for the assist. Amazing how much I've forgotten and I'm only getting younger so it can't be that, right? lol Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zeno~SPARTA~ Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 Jump on Ts youre always welcome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zathrus~SPARTA~ Posted March 3, 2015 Author Share Posted March 3, 2015 Hey Xross! I build computers for people all the time, including gaming rigs. For dependable blistering speed I would recommend the following: Base components hard to go wrong with a quadcore i5 or i7 (I run an old i7 2600K which I have locked at stock speed of 3.4ghz and it still runs everything very fast) 8 gigs of corsair ram. Right now I think the best vid card on the market for the money is nVidia's GTX 970 unless you want to run higher than 1080p monitors, if your running higher than 1080p then the GTX980 To keep a rig like this stable, I would recommend a corsair 750 watt powersupply. Yes the rig probably only needs 550 to 600 watts at max load, but you want to oversize the powersupply so that it never exceeds about 80% max output. That guarantees a nice clean power signal under any conditions and the powersupply will last for a very very long time. For a mobo, I prefer ASUS motherboards for reliability and resistance to static shock. (big problems with static discharges out here in AZ due to super dry air) I also like Gigabyte boards, but have had gigabytes fail due to static discharges. I have never had an Asus mobo fail due to a static discharge. But that is what I would recommend for base components.... also I am a proponent of full size towers. This is because I have never had a system get hot in a full tower. Some midsize towers just do not breath very well with the size of todays vid cards. For CPU cooling, I have had very good personal and customer results with corsair's closed loop liquid coolers. They cool a little better than a very high end air cooler, they are silent, and so far have been very reliable (I have one in my rig and six in the field, some for over 4 years now) Corsair has just done a fantastic job with their Ram, cpu coolers and powersupplies. They are hard to beat for the cost and in my experience trouble free. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xross Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 Hey Zath! Great to hear from you bud! I'm going to put a response note in the computer section regarding my build, the good and not yet good. I apologize for getting this thread completely off topic. It was just so good to see the lads again I got a bit swept away. ;( Hope to catch you in the computer section. Now about those Fords ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zathrus~SPARTA~ Posted March 3, 2015 Author Share Posted March 3, 2015 well, with the Fords of that time period, you just have to know, if it is going to roll over, you have to ly down across the seats. If the G forces are preventing you from lying down, it does not matter anymore... its going to be bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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