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).
Adjustments to steering damping and pivot lean to manage high-speed wobbles and improve road handling.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 17\3\ Scan183 | |
| Date | 7th March 1928 guessed | |
| contd :- -3- improve both the scuttle armature and dash rigidity with semi isolation at the same time reduce bonnet rattles. On the last 10,000 miles test on 10-G3 it was the only way we could get reasonably good results. (2) Tangential road shocks. Owing to the enormous speed range of the car and its remarkable road holding properties which enable high speeds to be indulged in on bad roads without the least discomfort to the occupants, the steering functions under considerably more arduous conditions than that of the standard car. Its most obvious requirement at high speeds is more damping. We do not want the damping at low speeds because it makes the steering heavy for shunting and prevents self-centering. On the standard car we use damping in the cross steering tube which gives a load of 5-5½ lbs. at the steering wheel rim with the front wheels jacked up. This is about the limit of what we can get with the standard spring loaded cross steering tube. On the sports car 7½-8 lbs. is desirable for fast touring. We fitted this load and a 9.5" pendulum lever to bring the steering back to normal lightness for shunting. The result was very satisfactory except for the self-centering. We increased the pivot lean to 3.5º but this gave us a feeling that we were on the border line of high speed wobbles, so reverted to 3º which seems about the maximum that we can use at present though more lean would give a better steering if we could avoid wobbles. We do not think that the rubber engine mounting has had any appreciable effect on the steering on this car. contd :- | ||