The Timken Company said its St. Clair plant in Eaton, Ohio (formerly St. Clair Precision Tubing) has landed a contract to manufacture transmission components for Ford's Sharonville, Ohio plant.
While Timken has been actively moving away from auto industry exposure in its bearing business, Precision Steel Components, and the Eaton plant, built in 1983, are primarily dedicated to producing precision machined components for the auto industry. Eaton employs approximately 75 workers.
Timken's other Precision Steel Components plants are Tryon Peak, in Columbus, North Carolina; and Precision Steel Brazil in Sao Paulo. Eric Walsky runs the PSC operation. Timken had Precision Components operations in Europe which were sold off in 2006.
The components awarded to St. Clair had been manufactured in-house by Ford in Sharonville but are now being outsourced.
Many of the parts produced by PSC go into North American trucks and SUVs, so St. Clair and Tryon peak grew quickly along with that market but have also suffered on the way down. Not only was the auto industry slowing, but high gas prices hurt sales of large trucks and SUVs and higher raw materials costs cut into PSC margins. A prolonged strike at American Axle also hurt sales.
St. Clair's new contract will help spread Timken's transmission parts across more platforms, as they will go into 6T units destined for Ford's lineup of mid-size vehicles, such as the Edge, Fusion, Milan, and MKZ. Timken did not indicate if it produces the same parts for the parallel GM 6T70/6T75.
Other components manufactured at St. Clair include automatic transmission clutch races for GM's ubiquitous 4L60E 65E and 70E; Caterpillar heavy-duty off-road drivetrains; and Chrysler drivetrain.
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