Our customer (a multi-national tier 1 supplier) had previously utilised an autophoretic painting process for corrosion protection of their actuators however approached ACC for our expertise to develop a superior engineered powder coating solution and apply this to their new generation of actuators for the Ford Bronco.
There were a number of design challenges to overcome which included curing the powder coating at less than 150oC to prevent the internal seals of the actuator from distorting. The actuators were also zinc phosphated prior to powder coating which also meant the internals of the actuator had to be hermetically sealed to prevent any solution ingress.
The zinc phosphating provided the optimum pretreatment conditioning of the metal substrate for corrosion performance as well as powder coating adhesion.
ACC applied a low temperature black 100% epoxy powdercoating to the rotary actuators. ACC’s ability to temperature profile the actuators during the powder coating stage as well as our in-house capability to design and develop the necessary masking for the zinc phosphate and powder coating processes allowed ACC to secure the contract. The combined zinc phosphate pretreatment and powder coating offered far superior performance in environmental testing compared to autophoretic painting.
The Ford Bronco is an iconic American off-road car that re-entered the market in a new version in 2021 and is regarded as one of the best off-road vehicles in the world, whose excellent off-road driving capabilities largely result from the anti-tilt system that utilised the rotary actuators powder coated by ACC.