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350 and 351 price in 1972
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castellan Offline
#21 Posted : Thursday, 11 December 2014 8:46:42 PM(UTC)
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quote:
Originally posted by Dr Terry
quote:
Originally posted by castellan

Now back in 1972 like, ford aus built 302 Cleveland here and only imported the engine blocks.

I'm not 100% on my Ford history here but I believe ALL 302/351 engines from XA to XE were cast & built here in Australia, with the exception of the early GT motors with their 4V heads.

Dr Terry
The Cleveland blocks were never cast hear until dec 1975 all blocks were imported form the USA the first of them blocks were fully machined then in 1973 we just got the raw cast block and machined it all up hear and then from about mid 1976 all the USA blocks were used up and only aussie cast ones from then. the heads and 302 crank were made hear from late 1971.
All the 351 4V were imports as were the first 351 2V Cleveland engines as well they were 2V and 2V dot up to the XA falcons and ZF fairlane and this engine had power by ford on the rocker covers, aussie assembled only had ford with an oval around it on the rocker covers.
So if you had one with a 2 or 2 dot heads it was a full import engine as aussie heads have nothing on them.
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HK1837 Offline
#22 Posted : Thursday, 11 December 2014 8:57:42 PM(UTC)
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quote:
Originally posted by we wreck 81837s only
current new shape kluguer is detroit made, as will be the camry that is to be ceased made here, will be made in usa, and exported to australia


Are you sure Frank? I thought the Kluger and Lexus RX we get here are Japanese. My Mrs RX350 is. I know they make our spec SR5 V6 Hilux in the USA, but the one we get is part Japanese with Thai assembly.
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HK1837 Offline
#23 Posted : Thursday, 11 December 2014 8:59:09 PM(UTC)
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quote:
Originally posted by Dr Terry
quote:
Originally posted by HK1837
Plus dealer fitted AM/FM radio


That would be very unusual in an HJ. I used to fit car radios back then & FM was only a novelty in the 70s, with the first commercial FM stations not broadcasting until 1980.

The very first AM/FM car radio that I saw was in mid 1977 & HZ was the first new car we fitted these to. Maybe this unit was retrofitted a few years after sale.

Dr Terry


You could be right, the original owners definitely had a dealer fitted radio cassette in the car from new, they may have had the unit changed later.
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wbute Offline
#24 Posted : Thursday, 11 December 2014 9:09:26 PM(UTC)
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Button removed protectionism from Australian made cars. They made no allowance for cheap labour in the future from Asian countries. They also set the system up to reduce tariffs continually. The industry can't compete without tariffs which also meant it was never competetive anyway. Button nailed the industry by increasing competition to improve quality of our local product but he murdered it at the same time. It only took 30 years.
Everyone quotes the wages they were paid in 1970 as an apprentice. Inflation increased everything including wages. That's why seat of the pants comparisons are pointless. If you use the RBA calculator a HQ is worth around 30K in today's climate. So no different to today.
If you want a real comparison of tough times look at farming in 2014. Dads 1979 wool cheque for 30 bales of wool bought a new Chamberlain tractor. Around $25000 in 79. In 2013 our same size wool clip made $30000. Now that's an increase of nothing in 34 years. Sadly wages and input costs have kept up with inflation though. I read the other day that there are 40% less farmers now than 30 years ago. So farms have got bigger. However of the family farms that are left 55% rely on off farm income. Farms are becoming totally uneconomic and are being bought by corporate companies. I would suggest that the future could see a large increase in food prices. Nothing to do with the topic I know but when you consider how easy it is these days spare a thought for some parts of the community that are not doing it easy.
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commodorenut Offline
#25 Posted : Thursday, 11 December 2014 9:37:05 PM(UTC)
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quote:
Originally posted by we wreck 81837s only
current new shape kluguer is detroit made, as will be the camry that is to be ceased made here, will be made in usa, and exported to australia

Sorry Frank, but the US Camry is assembled in Kentucky, not Detroit, and they only do LHD versions - our replacement will come from Thailand.

With the exception of GM/Ford/Chrysler, Detriot is no longer the key auto assembly region. Unions saw to that - they drove the labour price through the roof, to the point where factory workers were now earning more money than health care professionals, who 30 years ago would have earnt 3-4 times what that factory worker did.

This forced the more flexible auto makers to look elsewhere - GM sent a lot of stuff north, into Canada, and others went south - not always as far as Mexico - they only needed to head south of the Mason-Dixon line, where unions don't have the clout, and wages are far more realistic for the "skill" level involved.

This is why it's far cheaper to assemble a Camry in Kentucky, than Australia (and their internal quality checks continually show higher standards than Oz - but we're talking 0.1mm measurements of shut lines & the like, so the human eye would never be able to compare down to that level).

This will give you factual data on their median wages in Kentucky:
http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_ky.htm#51-0000

Compare that $14-18/hour average in KY across most of the production jobs listed, to the $55/hour figure being thrown around as Detroit wages, and you can see why they went south.

BMW chose South Carolina for it's assembly plant for that very reason - it was not prepared to invest into a region where the unions held the car companies to ransom, effectively killing the business over time.


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Mick
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castellan Offline
#26 Posted : Thursday, 11 December 2014 9:42:34 PM(UTC)
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quote:
Originally posted by Dr Terry
quote:
Originally posted by wbute
I honestly don't think things were dearer in the 70's. if you use this RBA calculator it gives an idea. HQ car works out at about $30000 in 2013.
http://www.rba.gov.au/ca...ator/annualDecimal.html
Cars have improved that were built in Australia. No doubt. The Button plan caused that in the 80's. We also now no longer have a car manufactured in Australia in two years time because of it. For better or for worse we will have high quality cars built in Thailand.


Those are 2 very generalised statements which don't really hold up under scrutiny.

Cars increased in price during the 70s like no other decade before or since. Take a quick look at the prices in my post above. I don't think that wages kept up with prices during that time either. I believe that where the average Joe could afford an HK/HT in 1969, he found it a lot harder to purchase the equivalent HZ in 1979.

I don't believe that the Button plan had a lot to do with the demise of Australian car manufacturing in the current era. In fact it probably made the locals slightly more efficient & last longer than they would have otherwise. Their problems are many & complex, but suffice to say it is not viable to build cars in Australia with no tariff protection, our high wage structure & ridiculous Government imposed on-costs. Many ask how can we compete with many Asian country's very low wage & cost structure, but to put it perspective, look at the Toyota Camry.

None of us here know of the future pans of our 3 (remaining) local manufacturers. The Falcon & Territory are uniquely Australian & where the Falcon probably won't have a direct replacement, we will receive a SUV of some type to replace the Territory. The Cruze replacement (or update) will probably come from South Korea or Thailand, but I don't believe that there will be a direct replacement, we will get the new FWD Insignia or whatever, but it will be more expensive & not as good as the Commodore.

Toyota is a bit different, The Camry/Aurion will continue on (updated or new model) just sourced from a different factory. Toyota build these things all over the planet. From what I hear we will probably get them from the Kentucky plant in the good old USA. Even when sea freight is factored in, the cars will still be markedly cheaper than those built here. OK, we can't genuinely compete with the low rent Asian countries, but there really is something wrong in we can't compete with the USA (plus freight).

Dr Terry
Yes by the time the HZ it was out of reach for most.
your right wages did not keep up to inflation in that time.

Our car industry never could compete right from the start, as it was only by the tariffs we had any hope of having a go at it, so much for our PM load of rubbish !
As the car making industry never was viable in the first place here but it was protected because other governments at the time had an interest in serving our nations best interest first and for most.
But we don't do that any more, as we now serve a NWO and they will tell us what is best for us, and your vote does not count when it comes to there control.
Political Correctness is our new age god and money is the only key, True morals are out of the question as we have to put up with the most deranged creeps lording it all over us and our freedom of speech.
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Dr Terry Offline
#27 Posted : Thursday, 11 December 2014 9:45:31 PM(UTC)
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I remember in 1972 when the XA & ZF were first released, we had a fleet of them where I worked (taxis & hire cars).

We had a lot of new Fords with warranty dramas relating to porous castings in the V8s, both 302 & 351/2V. We had no such dramas with the equivalent XY & ZD 351/2V.

The guys at the dealership at the time told us that the XA V8s except for the GTs were cast in Geelong & that they were have lots of dramas with these new engines at that time.

Are you sure that Geelong V8s weren't cast until 1976. If so, & the dealers were just feeding us BS, then why were they so much worse than the XY/ZD engines in this regard.

Dr Terry.
If at first you don't succeed, just call it Version 1.0
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Dr Terry Offline
#28 Posted : Thursday, 11 December 2014 11:06:35 PM(UTC)
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quote:
Originally posted by wbute

Everyone quotes the wages they were paid in 1970 as an apprentice. Inflation increased everything including wages. That's why seat of the pants comparisons are pointless. If you use the RBA calculator a HQ is worth around 30K in today's climate. So no different to today.
If you want a real comparison of tough times look at farming in 2014. Dads 1979 wool cheque for 30 bales of wool bought a new Chamberlain tractor. Around $25000 in 79. In 2013 our same size wool clip made $30000. Now that's an increase of nothing in 34 years. Sadly wages and input costs have kept up with inflation though. I read the other day that there are 40% less farmers now than 30 years ago. So farms have got bigger. However of the family farms that are left 55% rely on off farm income. Farms are becoming totally uneconomic and are being bought by corporate companies. I would suggest that the future could see a large increase in food prices. Nothing to do with the topic I know but when you consider how easy it is these days spare a thought for some parts of the community that are not doing it easy.


You've mentioned the HQ vs today's values several times now & yes they are valid. However you will find that 1979 or 1993 values don't stack up anywhere near those. Inflation did increase everything including wages but not at the same time & at the same rates. It's a bit like a dog chasing its tail, it's a vicious circle where nobody wins all of the time.

Your wool clip example very much mirrors the current situation in the automotive repair industry. Because new cars & parts are relatively cheap & wages & other workshop overheads are so expensive, it means that it becomes too expensive to repair cars (or even sub-assemblies). We have been reconditioning power steering racks for over 35 years. In 1980 we got $260 - $290 for a reconditioned Commodore power steering rack, today we get $230 +GST for the same item. In that time wages & rent have more than tripled, while the parts are not that much more expensive. The upshot is that an automotive workshop that was a good earner 30 years ago is now a worthless not-for-profit business. I actually closed mine over 2 years ago & now just sell parts. All that equipment & skill now wasting away. It might be different in other areas where insane rent (or property values) aren't a major factor, but surely wages would be at the same high levels across Australia.

I have a database of over 2,500 workshops in the Sydney region that I have had dealings with. My latest survey shows that more than 40% of those have closed down over the last 10 years & not too many new ones have opened up to replace them. OK, some of those were older mechanics retiring, but in years gone by, there was usually someone to buy the business & carry on with it, usually one of the employees from that shop. But those guys have the smarts, they probably already know that their wage is more that the owner takes home, working less hours & with less stress, so why would he put himself thru that, by purchasing the business.

Dr Terry
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gm5735 Offline
#29 Posted : Thursday, 11 December 2014 11:19:42 PM(UTC)
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A lot is made of the labour cost in car manufacturing, but it isn't the deciding factor all by itself, in fact it is usually a small consideration.
The reality is that the labour cost in modern vehicle manufacture is less than 10% of the total cost, and often less than 5%, even in Australia, Canada, Germany and the US.

The decision re local manufacture is not whether it is profitable or not, but whether it is MORE profitable in countries with lower cost structures. These structures include things that we take for granted, such as an extensive health care system, an expensive and often abused social welfare system, old age pensions, compulsory superannuation, an extensive regulatory and environmental framework to comply with, and worker safety regulations.
Much of this is paid for thorough the tax system, and most multinational companies will shift their structures to countries where the overall costs are the lowest, including the tax structure.
All of the local car companies have attracted the interest of the ATO for such practices as selling completed cars, engines, and intellectual property (such as engineering) to overseas divisions at cost, or at a loss. Obviously it is better to make your profit in a country with a 5% company tax rate than in a country with a 30% company tax rate. In the end most of the profit after local tax will be repatriated to Detroit, or to Tokyo, no matter where it is made.
This is particularly true since senior executives are directly rewarded on such things as cost reduction, manufacturing profit, reduction in numbers of plant locations, return on invested capital and indirectly with such things as share options.

The reality is, if you want to attract local manufacture in some industries, you don't need to reduce hourly rates much, but you do need to do away with such things as unemployment benefits and other welfare such as pensions, extensive public sanitation, free public health care, superannuation, etc etc.
Tariffs are one way to redress the balance, but are basically illegal under free trade agreements Australia has signed up to.
Not a very nice choice, is it?
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Dr Terry Offline
#30 Posted : Friday, 12 December 2014 12:16:34 AM(UTC)
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quote:
Originally posted by gm5735
A lot is made of the labour cost in car manufacturing, but it isn't the deciding factor all by itself, in fact it is usually a small consideration.
The reality is that the labour cost in modern vehicle manufacture is less than 10% of the total cost, and often less than 5%, even in Australia, Canada, Germany and the US.

While I agree in principle, it's not the direct labour cost that needs to be calculated, it's the total wage bill.

For example, I don't know what the real figures are, but if you take say GM-H's total annual wage bill (for any given year). This includes everybody, the CEO, board members, designers, engineers, accountants, sales people, production people, the whole lot. Divide that number by the total number of cars built & that will give you $$ per car. As I said, I don't know those figures, but someone on here might & I'm sure it would represent a lot more than 5%.

I think the 5% number is a fudge calculated by dividing the RRP of any given car, by the number of hours to produce it, factoring in the hourly rate of the factory floor worker.

Dr Terry
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we wreck 81837s only Offline
#31 Posted : Friday, 12 December 2014 1:46:21 AM(UTC)
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quote:
Originally posted by commodorenut
quote:
Originally posted by we wreck 81837s only
current new shape kluguer is detroit made, as will be the camry that is to be ceased made here, will be made in usa, and exported to australia

Sorry Frank, but the US Camry is assembled in Kentucky, not Detroit, and they only do LHD versions - our replacement will come from Thailand.

With the exception of GM/Ford/Chrysler, Detriot is no longer the key auto assembly region. Unions saw to that - they drove the labour price through the roof, to the point where factory workers were now earning more money than health care professionals, who 30 years ago would have earnt 3-4 times what that factory worker did.

This forced the more flexible auto makers to look elsewhere - GM sent a lot of stuff north, into Canada, and others went south - not always as far as Mexico - they only needed to head south of the Mason-Dixon line, where unions don't have the clout, and wages are far more realistic for the "skill" level involved.

This is why it's far cheaper to assemble a Camry in Kentucky, than Australia (and their internal quality checks continually show higher standards than Oz - but we're talking 0.1mm measurements of shut lines & the like, so the human eye would never be able to compare down to that level).

This will give you factual data on their median wages in Kentucky:
http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_ky.htm#51-0000

Compare that $14-18/hour average in KY across most of the production jobs listed, to the $55/hour figure being thrown around as Detroit wages, and you can see why they went south.

BMW chose South Carolina for it's assembly plant for that very reason - it was not prepared to invest into a region where the unions held the car companies to ransom, effectively killing the business over time.



might be wrong with camry, but klugeur-110% jap built american, i have a bui;d sheet heere somewhere from a nweey we fixing for dealer, dont forget, japan now own neaarly all part of michigan
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we wreck 81837s only Offline
#32 Posted : Friday, 12 December 2014 1:54:40 AM(UTC)
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quote:
Originally posted by Dr Terry
I remember in 1972 when the XA & ZF were first released, we had a fleet of them where I worked (taxis & hire cars).

We had a lot of new Fords with warranty dramas relating to porous castings in the V8s, both 302 & 351/2V. We had no such dramas with the equivalent XY & ZD 351/2V.

The guys at the dealership at the time told us that the XA V8s except for the GTs were cast in Geelong & that they were have lots of dramas with these new engines at that time.

Are you sure that Geelong V8s weren't cast until 1976. If so, & the dealers were just feeding us BS, then why were they so much worse than the XY/ZD engines in this regard.

Dr Terry.

geelong blocks suffered from core shift right up until the very end of their production run, usually no.5 bore on the thrust side was the culprit even some of the late black small hole dissy blocks came from factory with 2 -3 sleeves in them. USA sourced blocks are by far better, even our pillow or late XE cast 4 bolt main caps can be troublesome. FYI but yanno
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Dr Terry Offline
#33 Posted : Friday, 12 December 2014 2:05:45 AM(UTC)
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quote:
Originally posted by we wreck 81837s only

geelong blocks suffered from core shift right up until the very end of their production run, usually no.5 bore on the thrust side was the culprit even some of the late black small hole dissy blocks came from factory with 2 -3 sleeves in them. USA sourced blocks are by far better, even our pillow or late XE cast 4 bolt main caps can be troublesome. FYI but yanno

I realise that many Geelong blocks suffered from core shift, but the dramas we had in 1972 were related to porosity, both water & oil & the reason given was that they were the "new' Australian blocks, not the imported ones.

castellan mentioned that they didn't cast them here until Dec 1975, so WTF ?

Also you mention the 'late' block with the small distributor hole. I was of the belief that these were introduced in July 1976 for ADR27A. This would mean that virtually all Aussie blocks had the small dissy hole.

Dr Terry
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castellan Offline
#34 Posted : Friday, 12 December 2014 5:45:41 AM(UTC)
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quote:
Originally posted by Dr Terry
I remember in 1972 when the XA & ZF were first released, we had a fleet of them where I worked (taxis & hire cars).

We had a lot of new Fords with warranty dramas relating to porous castings in the V8s, both 302 & 351/2V. We had no such dramas with the equivalent XY & ZD 351/2V.

The guys at the dealership at the time told us that the XA V8s except for the GTs were cast in Geelong & that they were have lots of dramas with these new engines at that time.

Are you sure that Geelong V8s weren't cast until 1976. If so, & the dealers were just feeding us BS, then why were they so much worse than the XY/ZD engines in this regard.

Dr Terry.
The blocks that are square type are cast differently to the old D blocks and then the last of the called pillow blocks are cast using the old way that the D blocks were.
I think what you are on about is just that you came across some at the time.
It maybe just that the quality control was not up to scratch.
The first aussie built ones in 1972 were bored out and all and aussie just put them together that could be why.
Or it's got to do with the casting of the first of the aussie 302 heads being porous ?
I know that the V8 Valiant blocks had a problem with being porous and the dealers had to weld them up to fix the problem of water getting into the oil.

Ford in the USA had the only casting of them so called Cleveland blocks and sent all the gear to Australia so no aussie blocks could be as USA made them up to 1974.

Only Aussies made the 302 Cleveland and the reason why we had to put up with making a 302C is because it would cost to much to have two block casting with one being 302 Windsor and a Cleveland 351 like it should of been. so they came up with the 302C as the answer.

Our 6 cly from the XY on was a bit of a cost cutting job as well because the USA 200 block is just like our XR 200 block but there 250 is bigger than our 250 and we made something in between so we could use the one block for both the 200 and 250.
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castellan Offline
#35 Posted : Friday, 12 December 2014 5:50:48 AM(UTC)
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Just think if we had to put up with that 230 or 250 chev 6 cyl junk heap in a Holden.
Holden were on the ball.
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castellan Offline
#36 Posted : Friday, 12 December 2014 5:56:36 AM(UTC)
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There is a tell tail of the full USA machined blocks as they have the build date stamped on the block, it's under the water pump gasket, so when you pull it off it's the under gasket.
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HK1837 Offline
#37 Posted : Friday, 12 December 2014 6:31:25 AM(UTC)
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quote:
Originally posted by castellan
Just think if we had to put up with that 230 or 250 chev 6 cyl junk heap in a Holden.
Holden were on the ball.


The 250 and 250HO were used in South African HK-HJ. Sold alongside Holden 6cyl, Holden V8 and Chevrolet V8. Weird hey?
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gm5735 Offline
#38 Posted : Friday, 12 December 2014 11:32:52 AM(UTC)
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quote:
Originally posted by Dr Terry
quote:
Originally posted by gm5735
A lot is made of the labour cost in car manufacturing, but it isn't the deciding factor all by itself, in fact it is usually a small consideration.
The reality is that the labour cost in modern vehicle manufacture is less than 10% of the total cost, and often less than 5%, even in Australia, Canada, Germany and the US.

While I agree in principle, it's not the direct labour cost that needs to be calculated, it's the total wage bill.





For example, I don't know what the real figures are, but if you take say GM-H's total annual wage bill (for any given year). This includes everybody, the CEO, board members, designers, engineers, accountants, sales people, production people, the whole lot. Divide that number by the total number of cars built & that will give you $$ per car. As I said, I don't know those figures, but someone on here might & I'm sure it would represent a lot more than 5%.

I think the 5% number is a fudge calculated by dividing the RRP of any given car, by the number of hours to produce it, factoring in the hourly rate of the factory floor worker.

Dr Terry


Ha! That's an even bigger fudge in the opposite direction. We (or at least I was) talking about manufacturing profit. A portion of the entire GMH labour force will be direct shopfloor employees, who will be entirely a manufacturing cost, and a percentage of the admin, warehouse, HR, engineering, and finance staff will be attributable to manufacturing. I've spent 30 years fighting beanies on how big the percentage is.
Sales and Marketing and their lunches are definitely not a manufacturing cost, nor are the spare parts people, or the service support staff.
Presumably most of these staff will stay when manufacturing ceases.
I don't know what GMH uses as an overhead adder to their direct labour cost, but it will not be their entire payroll.
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Dr Terry Offline
#39 Posted : Friday, 12 December 2014 6:37:53 PM(UTC)
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I was talking about labour content or labour cost per unit to build.

Another way a lot of labour is 'hidden' is on contract supply parts. Just about every part or sub-assembly supplied to the car maker has a labour content. It's just that it's not counted as 'their own' labour. It would be fair to assume that Holden's labour bill on the factory floor has reduced in recent times (in % terms) since they no longer build all of their own transmissions, diffs, brakes, seats, etc. etc. as they used to in decades gone by. But just because the bits are built outside the company doesn't mean those parts don't have any labour content

I seem to remember some figures published in the mid 80s concerning the raw materials content of a modern car. When I say raw I mean raw, steel, cast iron, silica, alumina, copper, plastics, latex, oils, chemicals, leather etc. etc. From memory the car was a VK sedan (approx RRP $12,000) & its raw material content was $800 to $1,000. The rest are all on-costs & profit margins.

Many of those on-costs are rent & equipment amortization but the vast majority is labour. Even simple transport by truck still contains a high degree of labour input by the driver.

Dr Terry
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#40 Posted : Friday, 12 December 2014 7:49:48 PM(UTC)
Dr Terry

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quote:
Originally posted by castellan
Only Aussies made the 302 Cleveland and the reason why we had to put up with making a 302C is because it would cost to much to have two block casting with one being 302 Windsor and a Cleveland 351 like it should of been. so they came up with the 302C as the answer.

I know that one only too well. In reality there is no such thing as a 302 Windsor. The only true 'Windsor' is the 351 Windsor. The original 221, 260, 289 & 302 family are Small Block Ford V8s, with the only orphan variant being the Boss 302 with its 'Cleveland style' heads. The only reason that the name 302 Windsor came into the Aussie lingo was that Australia only built the 302 Cleveland as bit of an orphan, so that as you say we could use the one block for both engines. If you went into a US parts shop in the 70s & ask for parts for a 302 Windsor they would think you were from another planet.

Having said that even the Yanks now use this term for their later EFI 302 engines.
quote:
Originally posted by castellan
Our 6 cly from the XY on was a bit of a cost cutting job as well because the USA 200 block is just like our XR 200 block but there 250 is bigger than our 250 and we made something in between so we could use the one block for both the 200 and 250.


You make this sound like bad thing. This is Aussie ingenuity at it best, make one block serve 2 engines & make other improvements like those made to the water jackets while you're at it.

I firmly believe that Ford Aust made better 6-cyl engines than Ford USA.

Dr Terry
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