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).
Visit to the Dagenham factory to research the Lincoln 12 and Textolite gears.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 126\3\ scan0007 | |
| Date | 4th July 1933 | |
| [Handwritten] R... X3V31 To WCR. from E.{Mr Elliott - Chief Engineer} E.1/HP.4.7.33. c.c. Sg.{Arthur F. Sidgreaves - MD} Hs.{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} By.{R.W. Bailey - Chief Engineer} Pn.{Mr Northey} re Visit to Dagenham. By arrangement with PN.{Mr Northey} I went down to Dagenham, as you know, on Wednesday last week, with a view to getting some information concerning the Lincoln 12. This car is 100% imported American chassis and body, and is brought into Dagenham for distribution where required. Unfortunately there were no Lincoln chassis at the time of our visit in the factory, and we had to wait until the return to London when we saw the demonstration car used by Mr Macintosh of the Ford London Agency. In the meantime we paid a somewhat high speed visit of inspection around the Dagenham Works and saw many things of considerable note and interest. The general report on these will be dealt with later, but one point worth mentioning immediately is that Ford uses Textolite, or similar material, camshaft gears on all his engines, except Lincoln which has roller chain drive to camshaft, and Mr Smith the Dagenham engineer, who took us round, said that they would not be without these now from the benefits they confer as regards silence of operation, ease of production, and saving in cost. Mr Smith said that Rolls-Royce were the only firm who could afford to use metal gears for this job, but that if we thought of trying the Textolite gear he would be very glad to let us have all the information possible, as in his own words they went through a year of agony in getting the job right, mainly in connection with the Textolite material itself. He would not like anyone else to go through the same difficulties as they had encountered and would recommend us to send two of our people down to them, one of the two being a chemist to go over the job with their engineer, and the other a machinist. We told him that we were experimenting with this type of drive, and we are of the opinion that it would be worth our while to take advantage of his kind offer. The gears we saw were similar in appearance to those | ||