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If working smarter, not harder, is the aim of many corporations and individuals, the transformation from left to right-hand-drive of GMSV’s new Chevrolet Silverado is a bit of both.
While there’s no doubt the multi-million dollar investment in turning the US-market Silverado pick-up into a road-legal Aussie ute is born of plenty of sweat and tears, equally there are some beautifully simple engineering solutions on show.
Remanufactured (GMSV doesn’t use the word `converted’) in Dandenong, Melbourne by Premoso, a part of the Walkinshaw Group, the hard graft is probably best illustrated in the conversion of the firewall from left to right-hand-drive.
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The whole firewall is cut out and made from scratch in a mirror image in order to accept all the original wiring and fixtures that the left-hand-drive version carries. And wherever possible, the original pieces are retained and re-used. Which is where the clever stuff comes in.
Rather than make an entirely new, mirror-image steering box to suit right-hand drive, Premoso has devised a method of retaining the original steering box which, with a few small modifications, can be then remounted upside-down on the right-hand chassis rail to suit the Aussie layout.
According to GMSV engineer Mark Wakeman, that enables the vehicle to retain as many of its original parts and serial numbers as possible, helping with any future servicing or, in the worst-case scenario, a recall situation.
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But just when you think an upside-down steering box is a stroke of genius (which it is) the hard work begins again with the entire pick-up body being removed from its chassis for the conversion and every single piece of trim and carpet removed, along with the entire wiring loom.
From the B-pillar back, Wakeman confirms that there’s little of note that gets changed “apart from tail-light lenses and an ADR-approved tow-bar”.
And it’s the little things that add complexity to a conversion like this.
“Even the door trims have to be remoulded because of the driver’s side power-window switch block. The dashboard has to reverse the angle of the radio towards the other side of the car and even the T-bar gear selector has to be mirrored so that the détente button is on the right side for a driver’s left thumb.”
