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).
Extracts from a letter by Mr. H.E. Symons detailing technical problems encountered with a vehicle's tyres, suspension, steering, brakes, and propellor shaft.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 114\4\ scan0092 | |
| Date | 19th March 1937 | |
| EXTRACTS FROM LETTER FROM MR. H.E. SYMONS. NAIROBI 19th March, 1937. The Dunlop people here are, naturally, very concerned at the very poor service given by the tyres and attribute it entirely through the tyres being too small for the load carried. They will confirm whether this is so tomorrow when they have weighed the car carrying its full load, but at present their view is that our tyre equipment was hopelessly unsuitable for the journey and that Fort Dunlop at Birmingham ought never to have allowed us to start on tyres of this size. I know that Mr. Robotham thought that the only thing Rolls-Royce Ltd. might learn from the trip might be some data regarding cooling and the petrol feed. Actually these two items gave no trouble whatever, but the very parts which I expected to suffer, i.e. suspension, transmission, steering and brakes have all shown need of improvement. The shock absorbers do not seem to be up to their job and required topping up with oil before we had even reached Marseilles and constant attention thereafter. Their fixing seems very weak and Hamilton had to put in a lot of work on them. The soldered coupling in the propellor shaft seems to me, as an outsider, extraordinarily weak for the power it has to transmit and in our case the shaft came apart and the pins sheared. Working right through the heat of the day when it was 118 in the shade Hamilton made some new taper pins out of tommy-bars, the handle of the wheel spanner and a tool for adjusting the valves. The joint was resoldered with the aid of two tiny Primus stoves I brought for cooking purposes and held all the rest of the way here. The steering does not seem adequately protected against the ingress of mud and grit and has been getting worse and worse, finishing with a frightful wobble between about 22 m.p.h. and 38 m.p.h. The brakes were never very good even when we left England. Long before we got to any rough going they were pulling to one side and needing constant adjustment and now they are practically non-existent. All these points have, however, been dealt with, to the best of his ability, by Hamilton. He has worked very hard throughout the whole trip and deserves every praise. Although from the point of view of my own jobs at home I should like to have got back sooner than is possible, I felt that to return by any other way except by which we came would not be completing the job I had undertaken. We had some discussion as to whether we should drive down to Mombasa and ship the car back from there with Hamilton and Browning, while I flew back by Monday's aeroplane. This scheme had its advantages, for the Works at Derby would then have been able to ascertain the exact effect the run had on every part of the chassis. It would have given Browning and Hamilton a rest, which they well deserve, and would have helped me as far as my own work is concerned. | ||