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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).
Design and development of Delco horizontal and double piston vertical type hydraulic shock absorbers.

Identifier  ExFiles\Box 28\1\  Scan229
Date  11th February 1931
  
832.

To R.{Sir Henry Royce} From Hs{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair}/Rm.{William Robotham - Chief Engineer}
c. to Sg.{Arthur F. Sidgreaves - MD}
c. to Wor.{Arthur Wormald - General Works Manager}
c. to Da.{Bernard Day - Chassis Design}

Hs{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair}/Rm.{William Robotham - Chief Engineer}1/KT.11.2.31.

X.235.
X.832.

HYDRAULIC SHOCK ABSORBERS.

At the same time as we are sending you the sectioned Delco horizontal hydraulic piston type damper we are also despatching one of their double piston vertical type dampers. We have not done any exhaustive tests on this damper because it is not what Delcos are fitting to cars at the present time. They have discarded this damper in favour of the one we have already reported on.

The double damper may be of interest to you because it indicates the first attempt they made on spring loading the pistons, and also the fact that originally they made their lever and shaft in one piece and pressed on the intermediate lever, though now they press on the main lever.

You will observe that the double damper is filled by atmospheric pressure although we cannot believe that this is as successful as the forced feed type, also that it has a variable leak pin which cuts off on max. bump and rebound.

There are so many independent companies at the present time working on the hydraulic shock absorber that we think its development will very soon be in the same state as that of the carburetter i.e. it will be almost impossible to patent anything of a fundamental nature in its construction.

The main difficulty, which the Delco engineers themselves are the first to admit, is to establish what loads give the best ride; and in their particular case the opinions of their customers are so diverse that all they do is to make the valve adjustment easily accessible and provide the widest possible selection of springs.

We are concentrating at the moment on getting the best shock damper characteristics and loads for our low rating springs.

Hs{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair}/Rm.{William Robotham - Chief Engineer}

We think that the modifications suggested in R.1/M7.2.31 will get us out of the majority of our troubles with noise, and can be economically applied to existing dampers.
  
  


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