I can vouch as being another satisfied Wet coat user - very impressed with it. I went through almost a full bottle on the first application, so I was probably over doing it, but it's good. I also got the snow foam and the shampoo that works alongside it.
That Wet Coat is pretty impressive isn't it! I still don't understand how it works - spray it on to a clean car and straight away pressure wash it off, as you do it starts to bead up and the beading lasts quite a while
Deeside is where they make 1.6 and 1.8 ZR engines for the hybrids.
We were taken into the PR room and given a briefing about Toyota, what the plant produces and where the engines are sent. Some are even sent to Japan, but they go all over the world. The hybrid part is not made here, but comes from Japan.
Untitled by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr
Untitled by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr
Untitled by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr
The 1.8ZR engine made at the plant:
Untitled by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr
A few others in reception:
Untitled by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr
A cut out A series. Always cool to see the workings:
Untitled by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr
We then had to don safety specs, hard hat, reflective vest and safety shoes and so the tour began. I should add that we weren't allowed to take any pictures or videos on the tour but our guide should have some photos for us soon.
Firstly we went to the casting building where the engine blocks and heads are made. We were talked through the sand casting method used for hte low pressure items such as engine heads.
We then got to see the furnace, they even opened the door. at 750C it was quite warm to be fair. We were then able to see the robots installing the liners into the cylinder block. Quite some noise going on for this bit. We had to constantly watch out for the robots named after an employee's twin children which kept coming round picking up head castings and moving them on to the next process.
We were then taken into the testing room. Every 50 engines get a hot test which means running for sustained periods. This on a fast run is at 6500rpm for 180hours straight! We were able to see an engine in testing in the dyno cells. Think there were 6 dyno cells in all. Afterwards the engine is stripped down, all torque settings are checked and the engine is dismantled to examine for any signs of wear. These are scrapped afterwards. There is an impressive amount of recycling going on with even swarf being recycled.
We were then talked through a warranty claim. This turned out to be an engine that had thrown a conrod through the block. Our guide talked us through their process of elimination in order that they could determine the cause of the failure. In this case were shown the block cut in two longitudinally. What we could see was that on the cylinder that had failed the piston had moved lower than the other three in the bore. It was also noted that 4 and 9 months previously that there had been error codes on the catalyst.
The cause turned out to be that the owner had put a small amount of diesel in the petrol tank and the non combustion of the diesel when it had got into the cylinders via the fuel rail had caused the rod to slightly bend thus essentially hydrolocking the engine. It was explained to us that as diesel is denser than petrol it will tend to sit in the fuel rail and then get fed in to the cylinder when cornering. This explains why it was one conrod that failed rather than multiple ones.
The engine had then run for another four months before suffering catastrophic failure. Really interesting stuff and we were all able to examine all the parts and understand the signs that caused it. Brilliant!
Then we went to see the production line where all the parts we had seen being made earlier were being put together. There is a fair amount of automation and it was definitely cool watching the huge robots picking up heads and going through the process of drilling them, the camshafts being added and then the bolts being torqued up all at once as they were fed through on a conveyor.
Quite a lot of stuff is still done by hand though and our guide talked us through the training process and how people are taught to get up to speed on the production line. For example to do put in and do up the sump bolts you have a time schedule of 13 seconds. Everything has to work like a well oiled machine. They train you by getting you to put on and take off wheel nuts for two hours to see if you can handle repetitive work. It's not for everyone.
Then whilst the workers were on lunch we were able to get close up to the production line as nothing was moving. Here you could just walk along and follow the process of the engine coming together. Very cool. We were told about what happens if there is a problem that production of engines today was set at 510 and because there had been 23 minutes of stopped time so far, that the workers would be doing around half an hour of overtime to meet targets.
Then when the production line started again we were able to watch it in motion. Very cool and I think we had about half an hour to take it all in. Its one of those scenarios where you may have seen similar things on the telly but this was seeing it for real, a very different experience.
After this we got out of all the safety gear and were presented with a lovely lunch by Toyota before a final briefing and then photos of our cars for Toyota.
All in all it was just a brilliant day and just so interesing. Rob and Dave our tour guides were simply excellent and were there to answer any questions that we had. Also an absolutely huge thanks to Richard and Gary at RRG Macclesfield for organising an excellent day out and a rare view of how Toyota make their engines.
chopper602 got a reaction from Gringosteve in Gyeon Wet coat
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chopper602 got a reaction from Pitman in TSS Round 5 Croft