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).
Letter detailing the performance of and requesting feedback on a sample Maybach clutch transmission.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 137\5\ scan0107 | |
| Date | 25th October 1930 guessed | |
| We woud like to have you install this sample transmission in a car of about the same characteristics as the Chrysler Eight, the smaller of the two Chrysler cars with which we fit four speed transmissions; that is, the smaller of the two eights which weighs about 3250 pounds in the sedan model and has an engine with 260 inches piston displacement with a tork between 175 and 200 pounds-feet. This displacement may not agree with any data you have; but it is the latest and most accurate and will be true for stock models next month. We shall be very much interested to know your reaction after you have driven this transmission. It takes a little experience to handle it properly; but it has some good points as compared with anything we have seen - and some bad ones. Engineering is always a compromise somehow. It may take too much learning to handle. It is a bit slow, at least in feeling, because of the wait necessary to bring about synchronism; but the actual time required may not be less than any other synchronizer takes to do the same thing. This we do not really know about the thing. It has unequalled durability, of course. It will be running in good shape when the rest of the car goes on the junk heap - and it will not have cost a penny for repairs or adjustment in the meantime, and this is more than can be advanced for any other synchronizer we have seen. Much shifting at high speeds will soon put them out of order and in need of repairs and replacement. How practical these differences are depends entirely on the sort of service the majority of drivers require. Carefully handled, this Maybach clutch makes perfect shifts between third and fourth speeds, particularly into fourth; and it does it without the necessity of using the main control clutch of the car. It works much better at higher car speeds than at lower; say from 20 mph up. Tell us just what you think of the Maybach clutches as a commercial device and apart from any opinion you may have of the transmission we send you. I had sent the transmission to you before we had tried out the Maybach clutches very thoroly and I thot that it might adversely affect your opinion of the transmission, after I had driven the job a few days, so I stopt the shipment and had it returned; but have decided to send it along and let you try it anyway. You have the designs for the interrupted tooth clutches that are standard in the job, among the prints that are in the case with the transmission and can make the standard job up if you want to do so. This accounts for the delay in getting the job to you. We woud like to have you try out the transmission just as it is before you take it down and perhaps use the internal gearing parts in a design of your own. You will know better what to expect from your own job if you do this and you will see just what we call a satisfactory job "off the line" and not special. They are coming off by the hundreds per day, just like this one excepting the Maybach clutch, which is, of course, special. One thing that has been determined since this particular job came off the line is that we had many rejections of roller bearings due to noise which were noisy because they had insufficient clearance. Making sure that the | ||