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 detailing the history of supplier issues and failures related to steering follower rollers.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 153\1\ scan0319 | |
| Date | 27th June 1939 | |
| C Rm.{William Robotham - Chief Engineer} 1300 BY.1/G.{Mr Griffiths - Chief Accountant / Mr Gnapp} 27th. June 1939. Robert Armitage, Esq., (Per Mr. Craster) Dear Sir, Rolls-Royce Chassis. Steering Follower Roller Failures. It was not my intention to raise this matter in any other direction but with Messrs. Hoffmann Co. direct. As, however, the matter has been raised with yourself, and you on your part have asked for explanation, and have sent the explanation along to one of our people, I have no option but to state the facts as they are known to us. In the first place the follower rollers were produced by the Adamant Engineering Co. who are the licencees for this type of steering in this country. Owing to the fact that the ball bearings, (which are integral with the roller and carry same on the spindle) were very badly finished to form by the Adamant Co., after considerable negotiations, as Adamants were very averse to the part being made elsewhere, we arranged to have the follower roller produced by Messrs. Ransome & Marles. Delays in deliveries and high cost led us to put the matter before Messrs. Hoffmann, who supply practically all our ball bearings - as a result, our Mr. Hardy, who had carried out similar liaison work with Messrs. Ransome & Marles spent considerable time in going into the requirements of the job in detail, and after examination by fracturing a number of rollers, and satisfactory excess load testing of others, it was decided to issue a standardisation sheet to replace Ransome & Marles as manufacturers by Messrs. Hoffmanns. We had no trouble until early this year when we had two steering follower rollers fail before they reached the customer, as the result of having to turn the steering from full lock to full lock a number of times in parking the car on the | ||