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 to a supplier detailing serious issues with springs tested on a test machine and after a road test.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 154\2\ scan0161 | |
| Date | 12th November 1938 | |
| 1305 c. Roy{Sir Henry Royce}/Les.{Ivan A. Leslie} Experimental Dept. Rm{William Robotham - Chief Engineer}/AFM.{Anthony F. Martindale}8/MH.{M. Huckerby} 12th. November 1938. Toledo Woodhead Springs Ltd., Toledo Spring Works, SHEFFIELD, 1. For the attention of Mr. Frank Woodhead. Dear Sirs, We have to thank you for the new interleaving supplied for our springs on the test machine. These have now been fitted, and we shall have further information about them shortly. We have certain troubles with your springs - chiefly with the interleaving - which are so serious that unless we can get considerable improvement very quickly we shall not be able to standardise them next March, when we had hoped to do so. The various troubles are as follows:- (1) The eyes are not round, and we cannot press the bushes in properly. We are prepared to accept that this bad rolling is due to the small quantities, but we have no idea how round you can get these eyes when you really try. Can you send to us, on loan, a spring of any sort having your production finish, so that we can see what we are going to get ? (2) The clips you supply hardly control the leaves at all. They are loose both sideways and up and down. We have just run a 15,000 miles test in France, on the result of which we had hoped to standardise your springs, but the springs have come back with the leaves so twisted due to lack of restraint of the clips that they do not register. This may speak very well for the metal of the leaves but it is ruination to the interleaving. | ||