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).
Engineering practices at Leyland, covering forged aluminium rods, compression ignition, torque converters, and valves.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 128\1\ scan0152 | |
| Date | 26th September 1933 | |
| -2- Hs.{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair}1/MJ.26.9.33. Cont'd.{John DeLooze - Company Secretary} a forged Aluminium rod in RR.56 which is supplied by High Duty Alloys running on a case hardened shaft. They use no bearing they machine the rod out to suit the diameter of the shaft then bolt it on direct. We saw some of these rods which had run about 50,000 miles and there is no signs of wear, in fact the diamond turning marks were still visible. The use of a forged Aluminium rod in connection with a hardened shaft is of particular interest to us. If we could make use of this on the 3½ Litre Bentley engine we should put our crankshaft period up by 320 R.P.M. If we can do this the urgency for a modified engine with a four bearing crank would disappear (actually, therefore, this may be a life-saver on the Bentley). H.{Arthur M. Hanbury - Head Complaints} agrees with this and we have put in hand a set of Aluminium forged rods. These can be made out of the existing dies. Other people have used this type of rod. In a number of cases however it has been used with a white metal bearing because they have had to work on a soft shaft. Leylands point out that it is the combination of the hardened shaft with the forged aluminium rod which makes a success of this bearing. (3) Compression Ignition. - They are doing a lot of experimental work and development on Compression Ignition engines. They had about four separate single cylinder units running and had done a tremendous amount of work on different arrangements of cylinder heads and injectors. Wd.{Mr Wood/Mr Whitehead} spent a profitable time with their engineer on this work. (4) They showed us also a hydraulic torque converter which they propose to standardise on some of their lorries for certain duties. Its special application is for rail cars and municipality work. There is no interest in it for motor cars and very little interest for general purpose lorry work. (5) Valves. - They are using inserted valve seats for the exhaust with stellite faces, and using Firth's Crown Exhaust Valve Steel. The reason for them using this material is to obtain long life and not because of any effects from T.E.L. Messrs. Leylands work generally throughout the chassis is of very high standard. They polish and magnetically test all the steering levers. They dynamically balance all their revolving parts. They grind most of their gears. They showed us everything we wished to see. We met three of the Directors who said that they would be pleased to see any of our people at any time and give us any information we require. | ||