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).
Letter discussing radiator overheating due to suspected grease in the cooling system for chassis 95-WR.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 47\2\ Scan112 | |
| Date | 24th April 1929 | |
| COPY. P/S "H". Ps6/RJ.24.4.29. Re: Chassis No. 95-WR.Sir Pomeroy Burton. Your H16/LH{Mr Haworth}19.4.29. I am writing to Nice about the radiator. Although I cannoy say anything definite, I am of the opinion that if it is possible for grease to find its way from the water pump to the water cooling system, I see no reason why it should not do so early on in the life of a car, such as a run from London to Nice. I have written to our Nice Depot to have more particulars of the composition of the foreign matter or greasy sediment they found in the radiator, with a view to probing this particular trouble. You will remember that when "CWB" took delivery of 29-CL, one of his first runs was to Vienna, and when he returned he complained to the Experimental Department that the car had boiled on some of the passes there. Later on this car came to Paris Depot on two or three occasions and, in conjunction with CWB's own fears as to the normal state of the radiator, we discovered that the cleaning out of the radiator with a caustic solution, not only cured the trouble, but rendered the radiator so efficient as to leave it beyond doubt that the water cooling system on the Phantom car was ample to keep the car from boiling under all conditions of heat and mountain-climbing. Within a very short time the car again suffered from overheating, and this whilst running round in Paris. This necessitated a further cleaning out, and I think it was only then that we came to the conclusion that the water pump was at the root of the trouble. If the pump permits a leakage of it's lubricant, then I see no reason why it should not leak from the very first moment it is put into circulation, as this car has done. Ps. | ||