Appleseed said:Speaking of drainage holes, or the lack thereof, which German SUV has/had issues with water in the rocker panels? I mean gallons of water. There was a short video of a mechanic poking a hole and h20 rushing out for what seemed like 20-30 seconds, maybe more.
That would be the first generation Touaregs. VAG engineering at it's finest. I also hear the Q7 does it.
nocones said:stuart in mn said:mad_machine said:Not only manufacturing, but you really do not want to drill, cut, or weld a frame if you do not have to. pre-made holes make fine places to bolt parts to
I've heard this many times, but have always wondered why.
It's significantly cheaper to punch the holes in the frame blank before forming it. It varies depending in many things but for a typical automotive frame where tolerances allow features on both vertical and horizontal faces can be added in 1 punch. Sometimes you would need to drill if you needed very tight tolerances or if production volume was low enough to not tool the frame blank. Though in that situation you would likely Laser/water jet all the holes in the flat also.
You also may be heat treating the frame which would make drilling difficult and welding potentially resulting in local weakening.
This is probably the actual answer. That would reduce the cost of tooling quite a bit by working in two dimensions.
nocones said:stuart in mn said:mad_machine said:Not only manufacturing, but you really do not want to drill, cut, or weld a frame if you do not have to. pre-made holes make fine places to bolt parts to
I've heard this many times, but have always wondered why.
It's significantly cheaper to punch rhe holes in the frame blank before forming it. It varies depending in many things but for a typical automotive frame where tolerances allow features on both veriticle and horizontal faces can be added in 1 punch. Sometimes you would need to drill if you needed very tight tolerances or if production volume was low enough to not tool the frame blank. Though in that situation you would likely Lazer/water jet all the holes in the flat also.
You also may be heat treating the frame which would make drilling difficult and welding potentially resulting in local weakening.
yes, it's the heat treating.
Keith Tanner said:Access for inner panel rustproofing, possibly? Tape actually works for this sort of thing, I've come across it on a number of cars that are decades old and it's holding up fine. It's not exactly cheap tape from Home Depot.
Well, you say that, but... This was taken when my 2011 F-150 was one year old:
I peeled all that tape off, sprayed Fluid Film inside the rockers, and put aluminum tape over the holes. I had that truck for another 4 years, and every year I crawled under there to inspect it, and the aluminum tape held up a lot better than the factory stuff.
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