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).
Axle gear testing, detailing adjustments to reduce noise and improve pinion bedding and lubrication.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 171\3\ img119 | |
| Date | 11th August 1922 guessed | |
| contd.. -2- As a result of this test it was also proved that this pair of gears, which showed good finish but was noisy, was made silent by adjusting the pinion to give an even bedding. We then measured up some axles and found that there was occasionally an error in the lining up of the pinion centre and gear centre due to accumulating chances of error in the axle construction. This error amount to about .005" in either direction and explained the discrepancy between the silence and bedding of gears run in the rig and the results obtained in the As as a result of this we altered our bevel test rig so as to permit the pinion spindle to be raised or lowered up to .02" by means of an eccentric housing for the pinion bearings. By adjusting the height of the pinion to get proper tooth bedding and then reproducing this bedding in the axle, we have found it possible with the reverse thrust scheme A-927 to guarantee a silent axle on any pair of bevels which shows a reasonably smooth finish. To take care of the return of oil from the housing to the axle box, six holes are drilled through the corner of the flange on housing A.874, so that one hole is bound to be near the bottom. One hole only is drilled at the bottom of the thrust housing to return oil from the torque tube. We have found that ample lubrication of the thrust bearing is assured by oil which is splashed through the journal bearing without the use of the well and copper pipe which was necessary with the plain thrust. I thought this information might be of interest to you as a means of greatly reducing road testing on axles. As you know we do not allow any hand work on gears or pinions. With the lapped gears now received from Gleasons which have almost a ball race finish on the teeth, our percentage of rejections is nil and road adjustments have only consisted in setting the backlash of the bevel gears. OY. | ||