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 discussing the design and performance of steering worm and nut components, comparing English models to their own.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 154\3\ scan0013 | |
| Date | 11th March 1927 | |
| X3682 Oy2-E-31127 March 11, 1927. Mr. R.{Sir Henry Royce} W. H.{Arthur M. Hanbury - Head Complaints} Bailey, Rolls-Royce, Ltd., Derby, England. (Copy to Mr. Hives " " Mr. Haldenby) Re Steering - Section 7050 Dear Mr. Bailey: Many thanks for your cable and note regarding reducing the worm to leave white metal in the top of the nut. We have now done this, in fact we put the change in hand at the same time we cabled you. We had not found the chatter marks on the whitemetal faces, but had the idea that fine slivers of whitemetal might come off the top of the threads in use and become wedged between worm and nut. We also wondered whether the nut might cant sideways on the worm under extreme loads and bind the steel of the nut against the steel of the worm thread. Neither of these effects seem to occur however as we are now without much trouble making as good a job of the older large diameter worms as of the new worms with the reduced diameter (1.890). Mr. Haldenby has been a great help to us on this by insistence on the possibility of producing a perfectly satisfactory steering by adherence to the English worm diameter and whitemetalled nut, if all matters of accuracy and finish were made right. The latest English chassis, when the steering became hot and with 6-3/4 tires actually stuck, but the latest English model worm and nut while showing about the same "poundage" on the guillotine, showed decidedly less tendency to stick than our own. In accuracy, our worm, produced on the Pratt and Whitney grinder, and subsequently lapped, showed if anything rather better than the English model, particularly in showing nearly equal "blueing" with the | ||