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).
Technical report discussing issues and planned actions for the gearbox, clutch, engine mounting, and front buffers.
Identifier | ExFiles\Box 5a\3\ 03-page122 | |
Date | 23th November 1931 | |
To Hs{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair}/Rm.{William Robotham - Chief Engineer} from G.W.H. X5840. Hotel de-France, Chateauroux, FRANCE. 23/11/31. 18.G.IV. We thank you very much for your notes on the clutch, gearbox, and water temperatures. Our reports upon the gearbox, we still maintain to be correct. Although we agree with you that the 3rd gear should be silent due to it being a serrated drive, the noise comes from the continuous mesh gears, and the sing from these gears we consider to be worse than the present standard 3rd gear. The side shaft gears also sing considerably and would be taken objection to. The 1st. and 2nd. gears are definitely below standard for heaviness and noise. These features, I believe, were appreciated before the car left Derby, and as you remark that you have got results there that are a definite improvement, we are apt in our Dept. to let things slide and not report upon them because of our ultimate aim, but we very often slip up due to this. We, therefore, endeavour to report upon all features as we find them to prevent us from slipping up on any one feature, and to have them continually before us; this is the sole object in reporting upon the gearbox. CLUTCH. We are going to dismantle the clutch to ascertain whether the slipping is caused by the spigot lubrication. We note your remarks re. the clutch springs and the attention that is going to be given to the clutch pedal leverages. The figures we gave you were taken as accurately as was possible, with a temporary pogo stick. We will check these figures over again as there may have been some binding of our stick that we used. The figures we gave you were as near correct as we could obtain. ENGINE MOUNTING. We have been fitting the spring plates to the rear engine feet which has delayed us considerably, this job being very inaccessible. The fitting of these has brought the engine to within 1/32" in balance. The results re. booms etc. we will let you have as soon as the car is again running. We are also going to take the side plates off the cylinder head, as you suggested, to see whether there is any blockage of the water way. FRONT BUFFER CLEARANCES. We sent you the buffer clearances at the time of | ||