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 from Adamant Engineering Co. discussing steering box compatibility issues.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 28\2\ Scan055 | |
| Date | 24th September 1932 guessed | |
| Adamant Eng. Co. -2- us in our second difficulty, which is that the steering box runs into the carburetter casting. You will see from the sketch that your box is an entirely different shape to ours owing to the fact that the distance from the centre line of the column to the centre line of the pendulum lever shaft is very much greater than ours. We appreciate that your construction necessitates this feature owing to your roller bearing follower. In order to clear our carburetters a reduction of 1.125" in the distance between these centres would be necessary. If this is impossible, it means that in order to fit your box, we should have to utilise some carburetter other than R.R., which naturally is undesirable. There is one other point, that is, the angular movement of our pendulum lever is 71° and yours is less then this. Summarising, the difficulties of getting your box into our chassis :- (1) The difficulty of getting the box into the frame is confined to alteration in the drop arm shaft diameter and casting. (2) The difficulty of using our own carburetter with your steering is insuperable, unless by some means you can reduce the distance between the centre of your column and the drop arm shaft by 1.125". One other point is that R.7 has a much greater reduction than our own in the box. The ratio of the angular of the steering wheel to the angular movement of the pendulum lever is 13/1, whereas on your R.7 it is 18/1. Naturally, if we are to compare the principles of the two steerings, it would be more easily done if the box ratios were more closely related. However, hereagain it is a matter cont'd.{John DeLooze - Company Secretary} | ||