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).
Visit to Rover Motor Company to discuss their freewheel transmission design.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 127\3\ scan0011 | |
| Date | 11th January 1935 | |
| To E.{Mr Elliott - Chief Engineer} Copy to Wor.{Arthur Wormald - General Works Manager} Hs.{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} BY.{R.W. Bailey - Chief Engineer} RHC.{R. H. Coverley - Production Engineer} X1091 E/Rbr.{Mr Rubbra}1/MN.11/1/35. VISIT TO ROVER MOTOR COMPANY. I visited the above to-day accompanied by Hs{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair}/ALN, to discuss the freewheel which they have standardised in their motor car transmission. The reason for our visit was that we do not feel satisfied with the results that we are getting from the Humfrey Sandberg type of freewheel, which we are using in the Two-speed Supercharger drive, and we feel that we may have to go to another type. We had an interesting discussion on the subject with their Chief Designer, Mr. Maurice Wilkes, and he very kindly gave us all the particulars with regard to their freewheel. The type they use was copied from the Warner & Studebaker unit, and consists of an inner race with three cam tracks, three groups of three graded rollers, and a circular outer race. The arrangement of the parts is shown on D.E.S. 2343 which has been drawn from their detailed drawings. They spent quite a lot of time developing the unit to give reliable results. In order to get a very hard surface on the inner race they Fescolized this part. The reason that the inner race calls for extreme hardness is that the rollers always grip on the same part of the inner race when driving. They use Brown Baileys ball bearing steel for this part. The outer race is made of KE 24 D steel with a 375 to 400 brinnel core, and is provided with a circular groove in the middle of the race so as to increase the unit pressure to avoid slipping when taking up the drive. The springs are said to give a load of from 3 1/2 to 5 lbs. and the spring load is to be kept within close limits, otherwise if the load is too high, the outer race wears out when freewheeling, and if too low slipping is obtained, on taking up the drive. The rollers are lapped as they find that the standard finish of ordinary rollers is not good enough. They make both races themselves except for the Fescalizing process. They also showed us the freewheel unit taken from a Warner Overspeed drive, which they had got dismantled. This freewheel is of a similar type, except that there are eight Contd: | ||