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).
Procedure for standardizing the American chassis to match the English chassis, including specific critiques of the Bosch battery ignition system.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 61b\4\ scan0086 | |
| Date | 27th December 1922 | |
| To BJ. from R.{Sir Henry Royce} c.c. to CJ. Wor.{Arthur Wormald - General Works Manager} c.c. to BY.{R.W. Bailey - Chief Engineer} Hs.{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} c.c. to OY. EP.{G. Eric Platford - Chief Quality Engineer} X4275 R1/M27.12.22. RE. AMERICAN PROCEDURE. X.4305 X.4390 X.4275. X.3614. Mr. Olley should not expect much correspondence from me, not because I do not wish to write direct to him, but owing to the multitude of things connected with designs I find it difficult to send him as much information as I should wish. I am looking upon the procedure as follows :- That Mr. Bailey (our Production Engineer) should advise Mr. Olley (the Springfield Production Engineer) of any alterations which are sufficiently advanced to be likely to become standardised and also BY.{R.W. Bailey - Chief Engineer} will advise him of everything that is standardised at the same time as we adopt it. I have written before that I consider every feature of the American chassis should follow exactly the English chassis, so as to be undiscernible one from the other. I mean by this to include the profile of the handles and all the little mechanism as well as the more important parts. For instance you will remember that I was not satisfied with the Bosch battery ignition, as though we found it to function well technically, there were features which were wanting in soundness and reliability, such as :- (1) The bearing for the spindle is a single one and is too far from the cam, and coupled with the fact that the governor produces a couple this will in time lead to irregular action of the cam. (2) The second point complained of by me was that the condenser contacts were not sufficiently reliable and we got the impression that the condenser was crushed into too small contd:- | ||