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).
Alterations and improvements to the steering mechanism on the 40/50 model.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 154\3\ scan0005 | |
| Date | 29th January 1923 | |
| TO UI. FROM R.{Sir Henry Royce} c. to CJ. BJ. c. to EP.{G. Eric Platford - Chief Quality Engineer} Hs.{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} c. to BY.{R.W. Bailey - Chief Engineer} Da.{Bernard Day - Chassis Design} Y 3682 R8/M29.1.23. RE. STEERING. X.3441 X.3465 X.3682. I was very pleased to receive your notes re, steering mechanism. We are making considerable alterations to our scheme at present, and if it is a success we shall apply it to the existing 40/50. With regard to the so-called Jacob's gear, which you are rather recommending, we could not well adopt this even if we wished to, for certain commercial reasons, and we have learnt that this type of gear has been used by the Lanchester Co. since they gave up tiller steering many years ago. We rather want to alter our gear so that it is extremely robust and does not wear, and for this reason we propose to abandon the aluminium box and possibly the ball bearing which you find does not last well. We have now got another method of fitting the cheeses which promises well, and we have also rendered the box much more oil retaining, and in the new design we are doing many things in addition, too difficult to explain at the moment. We have lately discovered that a good deal of the trouble with the steering mechanism is due to the natural errors in the geometry of the steering rods on all makes of cars. These have been removed by fitting radius rods to the front axle to correct this geometry, in which case the steering gear is much happier, and I think will be found to last 4 or 5 times as long. R.{Sir Henry Royce} | ||