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).
Failure of 40/50 model steering boxes.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 38\1\ Scan084 | |
| Date | 27th June 1921 | |
| CJ. from R.{Sir Henry Royce} C. to Hs.{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} X3465 R10/G27.6.21. X.3465 - RE FAILURE OF 40/50 STEERING BOXES X4264 CJ2/D23/6/21 - Paris. These have been of the same design and same fixing to the best of my knowledge, for the whole time we have been making 40/50 chassis (15 years). We have only lately had one or two broken specimens; these we are investigating, finding the date of the car etc. and endeavouring to reproduce the breakage on our bumping test, when we shall know more about it. I think it will be found that possibly a better block under the bolt head will improve the resistance of the box to shock. The recent gradual move towards centre point steering has resulted in less stress being given to the box for a given roughness of road, so that we ought to be in a better position than in the early car. The trouble may, however, have arisen from quite a different cause, namely, the car getting off the road into a ditch, or in a position where the frame is tremendously twisted and so the steering column fixing and the fixing of the box having a severe quarrel resulting in the breaking of the box, which naturally gets strained. X.4264. On Goshawk 11. we have a good provision to prevent any serious stress through such a cause. We suppose we must expect to find occasionally such parts broken . As long as they do not actually cause danger to the occupants we must be contended. We do not know how much risk there was in the cases in which these boxes were broken, or in what condition they were found, or how they came to be found. Mr. Hives will perhaps write more on the subject. R.{Sir Henry Royce} | ||