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).
Broken sub-frame support bracket and a developing clutch issue.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 11\3\ 03-page193 | |
| Date | 14th July 1930 | |
| To: Hs.{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} From G.W.H. Hôtel de France, Châteauroux, Indre. 14/7/30. We have to-day sent you a telegram reading as follows:- REAR NEAR SIDE SUB-FRAME SUPPORT BRACKET BROKEN NEW ONE REQUIRED. Re the rear sub-frame support bracket. This has broken clean away from the bolts holding the bracket to the frame, leaving the rear portion of the body unsupported. This evidently broke during the run from Paris, as we heard a bad knocking noise and could not locate it until yesterday evening. The temporary exhaust system we have fitted up is standing up to its work quite O.K. We have left word with Paris to inform us immediately the rear aluminium portion of the silencer arrives, when we shall run up and have it fitted. We have got a new mystery developed in the clutch. This is a very spongy feeling, and hard to disengage after the engine and gear box, etc., have become warmed up. We then get the following symptoms: Whilst the engine is running at approx. 500 to 800 revs., the clutch is quite free to disengage, but as the speed of the engine increases so does the clutch become difficult to disengage. The feel is as if we were compressing air or oil. It is exactly the same symptoms that we had with the plungers in the change speed mechanism when the Phantom I was first brought out. This was located to oil getting behind the plungers. We wonder therefore whether the symptoms of the clutch are due to the oil getting in the rear spigot bearing and cannot escape quick enough to allow for the clutch movement. | ||