From the Rolls-Royce experimental archive: a quarter of a million communications from Rolls-Royce, 1906 to 1960's. Documents from the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation (SHRMF).
Gear and gearbox design, covering issues with unmeshing and comparing various construction methods.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 136\5\ scan0298 | |
| Date | 20th March 1925 | |
| -3- AJS2/DB.{Donald Bastow - Suspensions}20.3.25. Anderson seemed to think that more trouble had been experienced through gears wanting to become unmeshed, since the more usual introduction of intermediate bearings, and thought this trouble manifested itself almost exclusively on the more refined types of design. Orcutt was at first disinclined to this view, but subsequently agreed to the opinion that the tendency to unmesh in the earlier days was for totally different reasons. These gentlemen gave the information that the Riley had had on a new design, the first speed fork almost weld to its gear when attempts were made to forcibly keep the gears meshed through this medium. They also said that the quietest box they knew of at the moment was the large Aster. They admitted that this was a particularly clumsy design, but considered that the large gear teeth and centre distance were mainly instrumental in the success obtained, but Orcutt himself was very emphatic concerning the virtues of the fabric coupling between the engine and gear box in the unit construction used on this car, in which the constant mesh pinion, it is understood, is supported similarly to our 40/50. Orcutt depreciated the method of controlling the front end of the constant mesh pinion shaft in the rear end of crank, as is often used in unit construction, and considered it to be a potential cause of noise, and that the Aster method was the only one worth adopting. Orcutt said that they were shortly opening a department dealing entirely with gear and gear box research | ||