It was the night shift on March 28, 2007, at
Toyota’s Huntsville, Alabama, engine plant when the Beast’s 4.7L V-8
began life as a non-descript piece of cast iron. Machined on site and
then transported on a line around the facility, the engine was
quality-checked several times before making its way onto a shipping
crate bound for Toyota’s San Antonio, Texas, assembly plant. The engine
was one of several thousand the facility would build that year.
When the plant opened in 2003, it
only built the 4.7L 2UZ-FE engine and was the only facility outside of
Japan to build a V-8. Being a new plant with a small group of employees
helped create a family atmosphere with quality being the main focus as
they had a lot to prove to the bosses Japan.
When the Beast’s engine made its way back
home, the Huntsville team was very eager to examine it. However, exactly
how they would examine the engine created a considerable debate.
Perry wanted to start the process by putting
the engine on a dynamometer to see how its performance had degraded over
time. However, Bruce Myatt, Toyota quality manager, was very concerned
about damaging the engine.
Also making the dynamometer issue tough was the fact that Huntsville
doesn’t build the 2UZ-FE engine anymore. Its dynamometer is set up for
only the engines the plant currently builds, and it would need to make,
modify, and even scavenge a part from a display to connect the engine to
the dyno.
“Perry called me one night and said they’d hooked it up,” said Myatt. “I was hesitant. He said it idled really well.”
The next night, the team turned it over and pushed the engine to its 5,700-rpm redline.
“It was exciting to see the power figures from
the engine in our cell,” said Gary Baker, quality team leader. “The
engine performed better than many new engines off our line.”
Perry says the better numbers are likely due
to the engine being broken in. However, for a mill with a million miles
on it, the dynamometer results are very impressive. The team now knew
they had a good engine on their hands.
Tearing it down would confirm their
suspicions. From the piston heads, valve stems, crankshaft journals, and
the block itself, the engine was in impeccable condition and impressed
everyone who saw it.
Examining the parts in
person is quite amazing. There is very little carbon buildup on the
valve stems, the cross hatching is still visible on the cylinder walls,
and the crankshaft journals have no visible wear marks. The only thing
they found was one slight mark on a bearing.
“We remeasured the head, the block, and cams
in our lab,” said Connie Roberts, Toyota quality manager. “Nothing was
abnormal. It wasn’t within specifications, but after a million miles it
isn’t going to be. The biggest surprise to me was the bearings. They are
probably the cleanest I’ve ever seen come out of an engine.”
After examining the parts, measuring them
against specs and testing the engine on the dyno, the team was
pleasantly happy to discover as it sits, the engine would have scored a
99/100 on their quality tests—high enough to pass it as a good engine.
“We have seen our durability test engines have
a considerable amount more wear and tear than this engine,” Myatt said
several times during our visit. Each time he says it, he smiles.
The Rest Of The Truck
Sitting 615 miles north of Huntsville lays the
rest of the Tundra, as a collection of parts for the first time since
it rolled off the assembly line on April 10, 2007. Like their Alabama
colleagues, Toyota engineers didn’t initially start tearing it down.
Rather, they all were eager to drive it, including one of the original
ride and handling engineers from when the truck was first being
developed.
“It held up extremely well,”
said Stephen Provost, senior principal engineer in vehicle performance
development. “The performance at the end was amazingly close to the
original truck. We do an initial mileage accumulation with the trucks
and then we drive them after that to get a sense of how they will
perform through what would be considered a normal life cycle. It was
amazing to see how close this Tundra was to a normal accumulation mile
vehicle.”
Impressed with the driving dynamics of the
truck even after all the miles, the team started meticulously
disassembling the truck, including removing the body from the frame.
Each part was labeled with similar parts on a collection of shelves.
Also, like their Alabama colleagues, what they didn’t find is the
amazing part of the story.
The most visual reminder of
what Sheppard used the truck for is the bed. Elevated on a rolling
stand, the engineering team was able to thoroughly examine the bed from
all angles. Looking at all the dents from the top and underneath, the
team didn’t find a single instance of a deformity due to their
engineering. In fact, the only major damage is found on the wheel wells,
which Sheppard told the team was due to pallet, a common item he loaded
the bed with, being wider than advertised.
Remarkably, the tailgate itself still worked,
even after Sheppard’s numerous cross-country hauls, ranging from 1,500
to 2,700 pounds, were loaded and unloaded. The only causality was the
dampener, which, to no surprise, didn’t work as well as a brand-new
unit.
“Now we can learn from it and how it was
used,” said Kevin Gileo, executive program manager for the Tundra.
“Then, we can feed that data back into the future development of the
truck.”
Another area of interest is the frame and leaf
springs. Sheppard carried a considerable amount of weight long
distances through a variety of weather and road conditions. With
Toyota’s history of frame rust issues, as well as the amount of weight
often in the bed, the expectation was there would be something to see.
Like much of the truck, the unremarkable is the remarkable. The frame
didn’t show any surface rust and the leaf springs were in good shape.
“It is surprising with the
loading this went through, how well the leaf springs held up,” said
Gileo. “To be honest, we don’t really have a million-mile expectation,
but it met our expectation.”
On the inside, Toyota engineers have stripped
the truck down to the bare metal. Remarkably, it looks very much like it
did when it came off the assembly line and is rust free.
Looking at individual
components, it is really remarkable how well multiple items still work.
For example, the driver side door latch, an item Sheppard had to use
thousands of times, still worked exactly to specifications. The center
console latch and the glovebox are the same. Each of these items worked
like it did when it first came off the line.
Then there is the driver seat. This was a key
item for Toyota engineers considering Sheppard said he often slept in
the truck and by no stretch of the imagination is he a small guy. In
fact, the seat was such a source of excitement and curiosity it was
shipped to Japan to be examined by the team over there.
Now back at the technical center for our
visit, it sits alongside the cloth interior that once covered it. After
being thoroughly examined by American and Japanese engineers, the seat
was found to be completely functional and meeting specification.
“To be honest with you, I
think the reason it traveled so much was the condition it is in,” Gileo
said. “Seat architecture isn’t just a Tundra product, this is used in a
variety of Toyota and Lexus products globally and various engineers
wanted to see it. It is impressive how well it held up.”
There is a lot of testing that goes into seat development, but you can’t replicate this amount of wear and tear.
Toyota engineers did find one tear on the
cloth about the length of a quarter. This tear could have been from a
variety of things and was a concern until they noticed the tear was just
on the surface. It never made it through the rear of the seat padding.
The reality is this truck—designed in
Michigan, built in Texas, unique to Toyota’s global portfolio, and with a
million miles on it—could still be on the road today with such a short
list of broken items that the mechanics wouldn’t believe you if you
brought it in for repair.
What’s Next?
With the truck thoroughly disassembled, both
the Toyota Technical Center and Huntsville, Alabama, plant have similar
plans for it. It will each bring in suppliers to look over their
specific parts and continue to show off the components to various Toyota
engineers.
Then, it will each rebuild the truck in a way
to display it. Huntsville, Alabama, plans to use it as a training tool
for new employees when they talk about quality. The Toyota Technical
Center plans to setup a permanent display in a new expansion they have
been working on.
In each case, the story is the same. The
Million-Mile Tundra will be a visual display of Toyota’s mantra of
quality, durability and reliability. Well, until Sheppard brings in
another million-mile Tundra to replace it. He is already well on his
way.
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