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).
Continued letter discussing Marles and Marles-Weller steering gears and their application in various vehicles.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 28\2\ Scan036 | |
| Date | 11th August 1932 | |
| Messrs. Rolls-Royce Ltd. Contd 3 11.8.32. place of rolling movement as employed in the Marles Gear, and it is found that on this account the Marles-Weller Gear can be made more irreversible than the Marles Gear by altering the helix angle of the cam track. It occurs to us that possibly you would be interested to test out one of these Marles-Weller Gears alongside a Marles Gear, and we should be very pleased to build you up one of each of these types for your test. As regards having fitted the Marles Gear to large cars of a similar size to your Phantom 2, we may say that no car of this size has yet standardised the Marles Steering. We have, however, fitted individual big cars here at our Works, as well as at the manufacturers' Works with a Marles Gear, and we believe that in all these cases the performance has been very satisfactory indeed. Amongst such cars we might mention a Straight 8 Packard and a large Daimler. Unfortunately these cars are privately owned, and therefore we are afraid that they would not be available for you to test. On the other hand the Marles Gear has been standardised in this country for many years on large commercial vehicles used both for carrying goods and for carrying passengers, and we may say, in confidence, that Messrs. A.E.C, Birmingham & Midland, Bristol Trams, Commer Cars, Crossley, Daimler, John Fowler, Garner, Garrett, Guy, Halley, Leyland, Morris Commercial, Peerless, Ransomes Sims & Jefferies, Scammell, Singer, Sunbeam, T.S.Motors, Vulcan, are manufacturers, amongst others, who have standardised the Marles Gear for a number of years, and are still doing so. As the weight on the front axle in some of these vehicles exceeds 5 tons, and the speed of the same, particularly the passenger vehicles is of very high order, it would appear that the performance of the Marles Steering Gear is second to none where heavy weights, hard work, high speeds and long distances are required. May we repeat that in our opinion the only satisfactory way of deciding whether the types of Gears we have to offer - 3 - | ||