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).
Comparison of 'Marmon' steering with the company's own, detailing issues with non-centre point steering.
| Identifier | Morton\M4.1\ img004 | |
| Date | 26th January 1921 | |
| To HS.{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} " EF " R.R. of America Inc. } from R.{Sir Henry Royce} (For attention of OY.) Copy to CJ. " " PN.{Mr Northey} " " H " " WOR.{Arthur Wormald - General Works Manager} " " DA.{Bernard Day - Chassis Design} " " BY.{R.W. Bailey - Chief Engineer} " " BN.{W.O. Bentley / Mr Barrington} " " HM.{Capt. W. Hallam - Head Repairs} " " CX.{Major Len W. Cox - Advertising Manager} " " C. " " SA. ORIGINAL. EFO JAN 20 1922 RECEIVED. X 1692 X 763 RE STEERING, MARMON - ROLLS-ROYCE It is interesting to compare "Marmon" steering with ours, because this is the best car of the American shipment to handle that I have had, and the steering is like ours in principle (worm and nut) It steers well, but not as easily as ours, because it has plain thrust on the stub axle pivots, and also these pivots are some distance out of the track centres, so that there is considerable twist in the bearings. There is one defect which is quite noticeable, and is serious under certain circumstances, i.e. it is not centre point steering, and if one hits a rut or brick etc. on one road wheel, the steering gets a bad shock. Also, if a tyre suddenly deflates, or the front wheel gets into soft road on one side, there would be a big pull round on the steering wheel. Therefore, our central point steering is far to be preferred, and if it has the defect of being too sensitive through absence of friction, it is only necessary to use plain thrust washer in one or both front pivots, and if too reversible, plain thrusts in the steering column. Otherwise, we have all the good features it is possible to adopt with wire wheels, as far as we know. With disc wheels only, we might have central point (Contd.) R K 320V (100 L) (2 H 100 11-9-20) C 3850 | ||