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).
Daimler's new Straight '8' chassis, their move away from sleeve valve engines, and issues with gear lubrication.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 128\1\ scan0168 | |
| Date | 14th March 1934 | |
| - 2 - E.5/HP.14.3.34. considerable weight, and improve the water cooling of the cylinder head. The Straight '8' chassis shortly to be announced by the Daimler Co. has been more or less produced by adding a further two cylinders to the 6 cylinder Lanchester chassis. It will therefore have a capacity of about 3.3 litres. The overall weight is admittedly heavy, being 42 cwts. The engine has 9 main bearings and the induction system is of the 2/4/2 type as mentioned in a previous memo, and is fed by a double down draught carburetter. Mr Pomeroy is exceedingly pleased with the general smoothness of this power unit compared with anything they have previously turned out. He told me that the chief reason for the Daimler Company purchasing the Lanchester business was to have an excuse for reverting to poppet valve engines and he hopes in time that the double sleeve engine will entirely disappear from the Daimler programme. He considers the difficulties of getting a circular cylinder bore on this type of engine are practically insuperable with the thin steel sleeves that have to be used today to enable the engines to be run at high revs. Another interesting point Mr Pomeroy mentioned to me in connection with his American visit was that he found they were having considerable trouble with hypoid gears of 2¼" eccentricity and that consideration was being given to worm driven axles in consequence. The Daimler Co. are of course solid on the worm drive for which they claim great results both on car and commercial chassis work, and they also say that the duralumin worm wheel is proving to be entirely successful for heavy duty work, but they admit that the one big difficulty with all worm axles is to get the lubrication into the gear when the oil is cold. E.{Mr Elliott - Chief Engineer} | ||