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).
The failure of a second Delco distributor due to a sheared pin and the anticipated risk of the same failure in a new distributor.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 108\1\ scan0405 | |
| Date | 23th February 1938 | |
| By.{R.W. Bailey - Chief Engineer} from Rm.{William Robotham - Chief Engineer} c. Hs.{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} c. Da.{Bernard Day - Chassis Design} c. RHC.{R. H. Coverley - Production Engineer} 600K Hml/R.23.2.38. We have now had a report from Waller on the failure of the second Delco distributor, and he reports that the only trouble was the shearing of a pin driving the distributor. As this pin is a piece which is common to the Rolls-Royce and to the Delco distributor, we anticipate that we are just as likely to have this failure with the new Rolls-Royce distributor; in other words, due possibly to the modification to the timing gears we have now more torsional vibration going through the distributor drive. It would, therefore, seem imperative to get the spring drive fitted on experimental cars as soon as possible. Apart from the sheared pin, there is nothing wrong with the second Delco distributor. The first one which failed has not yet come to hand, so we have not had an opportunity of examining this. Rm.{William Robotham - Chief Engineer} | ||