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).
Crankshaft dampers and balancing methods, comparing different approaches with competitors.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 173\4\ img227 | |
| Date | 5th December 1935 guessed | |
| -3- the one we tried, especially as it had a higher compression than standard. I should personally have thought we ought to have a Zephyr for the modernised chassis construction, but it seems doubtful whether it will be much use for the engine. Apart from the roughness of the engine the gears were very noisy and so was the rear axle. The gears could be crashed very easily. The ride was good and the car seemed to handle quite well. Crankshaft Dampers. Though G.M. say they have not had much success with the rubber dampers; Packards say they get better results with the rubber than with the steel spring type. The Cadillac example of a rubber damper which we have has only the friction provided by the rubber itself, but in the Packard one, of which we also have an example, there is additional friction provided by springs and friction surfaces, and it is suggested that this may be the reason for the different result. Packards are positive of their results and say the life of the damper is indefinite as far as their experience goes. They have a great many patents for these dampers in Mr.Griswold's name. They have also apparently been experimenting with flexibly driven flywheels, but I could not get any information from them about this. Cadillac dampers are outside and they say would be better inside to avoid rusting up. Packards are inside. Crankshafts. Packards consider our method of balancing crankshafts to be out of date, and say for years they have used a deflection method which gives somewhat different results as far as the position of the weight is concerned, and which they suggest may be one reason why copper lead bearings do not work well in our engine. This applies to the 6 cylinder crank. They say they mount the crankshaft on the end journals and apply a weight successively to the two outside crankpins, the two middle and the two inner ones. This gives them three deflection curves in three planes. They then apply weights until the crankshaft is brought back exactly straight. | ||