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).
Development of a water temperature thermometer and radiator louvres, prompted by poor performance due to low-grade petrol.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 181\M11\ img165 | |
| Date | 3rd April 1919 | |
| To EH. from R.{Sir Henry Royce} c. to CJ. ORIGINAL RE INSTRUMENT TO RECORD WATER TEMPERATURE, We are very pleased indeed that you have been able to obtain a thermometer suitable for the instrument board, and we have put in hand at once a drawing for a set of louvres to be fitted to the car, as it would be most irritating for one to know the temperature of the water, and have no means of controlling it. We have asked you as a preliminary arrangement, to fit to the radiator a sheet of metal or wood with a hole in it the size of the fan, so that the radiating surface which is reduced, and that which is left, is under the direct influence of the fan. In addition to this, it would be nice if we could even temporarily arrange a piece of wood which would slide up from the bottom, cutting out half of this remaining portion. We have only just discovered that the petrol we have purchased here is of about the lowest grade every known, and accounted for much of the poor running of our cars. We are pleased, however, to say that 7-CA will, however, when the water in the radiator approaches boiling point, run magnificently and economically on this otherwise unsatisfactory petrol. Ultimately we intend that instead of fitting a thermometer, we make the louvres more automatically by a theromstat. In the meantime we must be in a position to supply hand operated louvres and a thermometer for those who wish to have something on existing cars. R.{Sir Henry Royce} R.R. 235A (500 T) (S.D. 408. 26-4-17) Bm. 2/156/13. | ||