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).
Competitor steering and suspension designs, including Chevrolet and Citroen, and modifications to worm gear shapes.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 173\4\ img084 | |
| Date | 20th November 1935 | |
| -2- plain bearings on the layshaft and that the equivalent of this friction could be put on our layshaft by a brake. Against this has to be set the fact that both the Chevrolets we tried to-day chunked badly. We have to ascertain whether the Chevrolet has plain bearings on the layshaft as seems likely. 20.11.35. I held this over last night and now have received your cable. Olley has no objection to the Citroen torsion bar scheme if it is possible to get it in. He has in fact devised a scheme for application to the Chevrolet which includes a torsion bar, but it is rather a fancy scheme designed for use with existing Chevrolet parts and is not of a real interest to us. He has, however, made use of the tubular torsion spring with the solid spring inside it such as we very roughly sketched over before leaving. I have mentioned previously the preloading on the La{L. A. Archer} Salle steering gear and now can say that it amounts to 2 1/2 and 3 lbs. at the rim of the 19" steering wheel. They also succeeded in getting the steering tight in the centre through 180° of wheel movement. This is 2 1/2 to 3 lbs. persists through the whole of the 180° movement. They say this is done by modifying the centre of curvature of the worm shape ¢ OF ROCKER SHAFT somewhat in the manner shown. That is, the curved outline of the worm instead of being struck from one centre about .070 below the centre of the rocker shaft (as in ours), is exactly the radius of the rocker shaft in the centre, and is gradually increased, the centre of the radius following a curved path until it is .070 greater than the rocker shaft radius, at a point a little on either side of the centre. The exact amount of the partly parallel part I have not found, but I am going to Saginaw on Friday and hope to bring back further information then. Generally I am coming to the conclusion that there is something in the design and manufacture of this steering which may account for the difference noted. | ||