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 from a patent attorney to the Chief Engineer regarding a new differential design.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 2\6\ B002_X 140 141 157-page105 | |
| Date | 12th January 1928 | |
| To Ma C. ANDRADE, JR.{Mr James Royce} REGISTERED UNITED STATES PATENT ATTORNEY AND COUNSELLOR AT LAW TELEPHONE VANDERBILT 6612 300 MADISON AVENUE NEW YORK January 12, 1928. Mr. Maurice Olley, Chief Engineer, Rolls-Royce of America, Inc., 46 Rockland Street, Springfield, Massachusetts. Dear Mr. Olley:- Yesterday afternoon after I phoned you I stopped at your Hotel but you were not in. I had a little correspondence with you in July, 1926 regarding my differential. Two months after that in September, 1926, I put in my twelfth patent on the final form of my differential, and I made one for a Ford as shown in the enclosed blueprint, and another one for a Chrysler. You will note in this final form of my differential that there are only three parts, i. e.{Mr Elliott - Chief Engineer} one driving member and two driven members, beside the rollers and control rods and one ring. The end flanges are thus entirely eliminated. This final form of mine makes backlash a physical impossibility, because the driving member is not fastened in any way to the driven members, and the instant that the power is put onto the driving member it locks on the rollers. It took me over four years to solve this final problem of eliminating backlash. Both the Ford car and the Chrysler car with my new differential in it have run absolutely perfect. Last winter the owner of this Chrysler car was going through a bad ice and snow road, and he saw a friend of his who owned a Rolls-Royce car stalled on the ice with one wheel standing still and the other wheel spinning. His friend in the Rolls-Royce asked him how he could get through the ice and snow without | ||