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).
Addition of friction to a steering column via a spring-loaded gland to reduce road shocks.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 28\3\ Scan027 | |
| Date | 12th October 1934 | |
| -2- HS{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair}/FJH.{Fred J. Hardy - Chief Dev. Engineer}25/KW.12.10.34. For the purpose of reducing road shocks we believe that it is desirable that the load required at the end of the pendulum lever to start the gear with the steering wheel free should be reasonably large. In the case of your gear this load is 8 1/3 lbs. We think that it should be of the order of 30 to 40 lbs. It seems to us that the best way of increasing this load is to add a small and constant amount of friction to the steering column and we think that a spring loaded gland at the upper end of the column would be a neat way of doing this. The effect of adding this friction is virtually to reduce the efficiency for low loads; the forward efficiency being reduced slightly while the reverse efficiency is reduced very much more. We should be very glad if you would let us know your opinion on the effectiveness of the friction mentioned above and on our suggested method of adding it. We have not yet tried your steering gear on the road but hope to do so at an early date. Yours faithfully, FOR ROLLS-ROYCE LIMITED. | ||