We pulled on the overalls to find out how Nissan and Premcar combine to turn a standard dual-cab into a fully-blown Nissan Navara N-TREK Warrior tuff truck!
Every week-night vehicle transporters arrive at a modern non-descript factory in the Melbourne northern suburb of Epping. Loaded onboard are five Nissan Navara N-TREKs dual-cab 4×4 utes, the cosmetically enhanced version of the staple Nissan Navara ST-X pick-up.
Within an hour or two, the same transporters on the road again, each loaded with five Nissan Navara N-TREK Warriors, the cosmetically and performance-enhanced version of the dual-cab 4×4 N-TREK.
Magic? No, just the culmination of a day’s hard labour and a couple of years’ worth of planning, design, engineering and testing.
Premcar built
We’re at Premcar, the home of the Nissan Warrior. Since late November, this is where Thai-built Navara N-TREKs have been muscled up – Aussie style.
On the Premcar assembly line there are 24 people who spend approximately 13 man-hours to make that transformation happen. Each day between 10 and 15 Warriors are built on an assembly line that is high on manual labour, low on computerisation, yet still has its complexities.
And always there’s the pressure of the clock. Each car goes through nine stations as it is transformed from N-TREK to dual-cab 4×4 Warrior and should spend no more than 30 minutes at each. In addition, there are a number of stations that support the main line, pre-assembling the bullbars, making sure the decal packages are sorted and so on.
It’s Bill Birney’s job to make sure all runs smoothly and he certainly has the credentials for it. He started in the mining industry, but has spent many years in automotive here and in China, including a stint at Prodrive, the predecessor to Premcar.
Small scale production like this presents different challenges to the huge automated plants Bill has worked in previously. It’s been a case of revising as time has gone on.
“When you are a very big organisation you have the chance to simulate everything,” he explains.
“We are a small operation, so people worked out how they thought it should work — then we’ve implemented it and refined it.”
Each day Birney supplies an order for the colour vehicles he wants delivered that night from the holding yard. That coincides with the colour of the batch of EGR bullbars that are on-hand to be fitted.
There are three Warrior colours – black, white and grey, or Cosmic Black, White Diamond and Slate Grey in car company speak.
Flareless arrivals
All N-TREKs arrive from Thailand without the fender flares or sports bar. In the case of the N-TREK, the parts are fitted by Prixcar. Premcar takes over that job for the dual-cab 4×4 Nissan Navara N-TREK Warrior.
Once at Epping, all the Navaras are inspected, sequenced and parked. They come onto the production line as required, with the first step to apply fuel consumption labels to the windscreen and stick info explaining the difference between a standard N-TREK and a Warrior in the owner’s manual.
In addition to the main numbered stations, there are also two sub-assembly stations. One pairs the hoopless bullbar’s steel skeleton and skin together, while the other mounts Cooper AT3 all-terrain tyres on 17-inch Rosta wheels.
There’s also what’s called a kitting station, which is designed to reduce non-productive time at the build stations by pre-preparing bolt allocations, sticker kits and so on.
Station by station: building a Nissan Navara N-TREK Warrior
First stop is Station Zero
This is so named because Station 1 was already in existence when the necessity to reconfigure the assembly line to help lift the production rate became apparent. Here, standard N-Trek decals are steamed off the body. Why are they there in the first place? Because the factory in Thailand where the Navara is built isn’t in a position to supply such a small run of cars without them. At this station rails are removed and holes drilled in the tray. Plastic wrap protects the paint from damage.
Station One is rear suspension
Here, two people remove the spare wheel, unbolt the standard springs and dampers with cordless electric rattle guns, lower the rear axle slightly and install the N-TREK Warrior’s new combination of Australian-calibrated Monroe springs and Tenneco dampers with torque wrenches. The rear wheels and tyres are also swapped over here.
Station 2 is front suspension
The front wheel arch liner comes out so the front springs and dampers can be removed, then the Warrior spring-strut is installed after being combined at this station. The standard spring-strut unit is also separated here. All front and rear dampers and springs are recycled, while the standard wheels and tyres are returned to Nissan.
Station 3 is front disassembly
It’s here that of the standard front bumper is removed (returned to Nissan), along with crash beam, underbody plate and plastic parts (air deflectors, etcetera), to get the car ready for bullbar fitment.
Station 4 is bullbar fitment, alignment and finish
This has recently been expanded from one to two lifting frames to ease a production choke point. The bullbar is rolled on a carriage to the front of the Warrior and then mounted to an adjustable frame and secured to tolerance. The stainless steel bash plate is also fitted here. The Navara’s grille is re-installed, wheel arch liners go in and the front wheels go on.
Station 5 is rear installation
Now it’s time to install the tow-bar, larger spare wheel and specific bracket to stop the latter hitting the differential. The tow-bar is a new design to allow the Nissan Navara N-TREK Warriors larger wheels to fit. This is the only station where a more traditional pneumatic-over-oil rattle gun is used. That’s because the electric guns are too noisy when operating in the Warrior’s tub, which amplifies the sound.
Station 6 is wheel arch flare assembly and fitment
Here a fibreglass frame saves 12 minutes per car in fitting time.
Station 7 is installation of the bed liner and sports bar
As well as the hard parts being bolted on, speedo correction – required because of the different rolling diameter of the Cooper rubber – is also done here. Because the Warrior rides 40mm higher the headlights are also re-levelled. The wiring for the 470mm LED light bar is also installed here.
Station 8 and the Warrior is now complete and driveable
Here the Navara N-TREK Warrior decals are applied, a process that requires a steady hand. White and grey cars have seven decals, but black requires a matt black layer and orange stripes and the total climbs to 13 decals.
The final stop is Station 9
And that’s where wheels are aligned and balanced, the tailgate tub is installed, headrests are plugged into the seats and floor mats placed.
And if the new Navara N-TREK Warrior is signed off it goes straight outside, locked up and the keys placed in a security box, waiting for the test driver to come along and do their thing. The first part of the test is a static check, then the drive itself is only about 5-8 minutes. The drive has three objectives; verify speedo accuracy with a GPS, make sure the vehicle is driving straight and listen out for squeaks and rattles.
Once the test part is completed the finished Nissan N-TREK Warrior is parked in the loading bay, where it will be collected that night along with the 9-14 others completed that day. And that is how you build a Nissan N-TREK Warrior.
Keyword: We build a Nissan Navara N-TREK Warrior