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).
The reproduction and testing of a fracture in steering pivots.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 2\12\ B002_X168-page020 | |
| Date | 6th March 1913 | |
| AW/EH34/L6313 March 6th. 1913 Re Broken Steering Pivots. - X.168 We have reproduced the fracture we got on the steering pivots on 1800E. and 2243 chassis, it is practically identical. We are sending half of it to you tonight by passenger train. We have obtained it by a reversal of stress on the bottom lever using the inertia of the road wheel as a load. We rigged up a reciprocating rammer driven off the rear wheel of a car, the ball of the bottom lever was in a slot at the end of this, when it was started the lever was thrown violently from one end to the other. We first tried it with load all one way as we get on the car with cross tube under compression but after two or three hours the pivot went very stiff and we could not get our apparatus to work. We reasoned that if this happened on the road the driver would have to stop because he could not steer. We have made several other tests and reports will follow. | ||