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).
Visit to Wolseley's to inspect a Cotal gearbox and compare it with a standard model.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 136\2\ scan0173 | |
| Date | 16th February 1940 | |
| 1153 To Ev.{Ivan Evernden - coachwork} Rm.{William Robotham - Chief Engineer}2/ML.16.2.40. COTAL GEARBOX. Self and FJH{Fred J. Hardy - Chief Dev. Engineer} went to Wolseley's today to have a look at the cotal box. Whilst Wolseley's have done absolutely no development on the box the visit was useful because the parts did not look nearly so difficult to produce as one would have imagined from the various scheme drawings which have been published. Also, we were surprised that the box was quiet, because there is only a slight helical angle on the annulus gear and the pinions which mesh with it, the remainder being straight cut teeth. We think that any weight comparisons between the cotal box and the standard box,which Wolseley's gave us, are likely to be entirely misleading, because they have only the vaguest idea of weighing things and amongst other things always insist on weighing their gear boxes with clutch pedals attached to them. The figures that I got from them were that their standard gear boxes for the 12 h.p. car weighed 80 lbs. with a cast iron case; the cotal box which replaced it 97 lbs. with an aluminium case. We asked them what was the first thing that broke in a cotal gear box when it was overloaded. They said that they did not know since nothing had broken on ones that they tested. They thought however, that the magnets would slip before anything else broke. - Continued - | ||