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 to Dunlop Rubber Company regarding tyre tread design and its effect on high-speed wobble for the 40/50 HP chassis.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 29\1\ Scan252 | |
| Date | 16th September 1926 | |
| COPY. TO HS.{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} 4457 c. Mailing Dept. BY1/H.{Arthur M. Hanbury - Head Complaints} 16.9.26. September 16th, 1926. Thursday. [Handwritten note: 3-0 17/9/26] The Dunlop Rubber Company Ltd. For the attention of Colonel Matthew, Fort Dunlop, Erdington, Birmingham. Dear Sir, Further to our letter of yesterday's date, reference BY4/H.{Arthur M. Hanbury - Head Complaints} 15.9.26. it appears to us that in selecting a tread for a tyre, and developing a tyre, the importance of the proposed changes in relation to high speed wobbles is not sufficiently appreciated by your Company. The idea may possibly be that the suppression of a high speed wobble is necessarily a chassis makers' responsibility but it is quite evident that in making a departure from one type of tread to another, the importance of high speed wobbles cannot be possibly overlooked, as our experience proves to us beyond question that a change in the tread can make a certain type of wheel and tyre utterly unusable, when prior to the change in question it was reasonably satisfactory or possibly one might better describe it as "just passable". We would emphasize the point we have in mind by explaining that we have not yet received a triplestud tyre of the improved type, which, in conjunction with its wheel for utilising same, has been a workable factor when considered from the point of view of high speed wobble, and it is this particular feature which is holding us up all the time on the 40/50 chassis, from adopting the well-base type of rim, which in itself we consider to be a very definite advantage, but since this advantage is coupled with a change in the tyre, which unquestionably increases our difficulties in the high speed wobble question, we are unable to utilise it to our own and our customers' requirements. The foregoing refers of course definitely to the 40/50 HP. chassis. We are pointing this particular feature out because it appears to our Experimental people particularly that this phase of the case has been either avoided or overlooked. Yours faithfully, TECHNICAL PRODUCTION ENGINEER FOR ROLLS-ROYCE LIMITED. | ||