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 detailing radiator design faults causing water loss and issues with a choked petrol filter on car IS4-EX.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 11\2\ 02-page018 | |
| Date | 19th December 1928 | |
| X7941 18 To: Hs.{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} Derby Hôtel de France, Châteauroux, Indre. December 19th. 1928 Send to BP We have received your letters of the 17th. inst. Re 12-EX, when this car left Boulogne, the General Transport people dealt with it. Their agent Mr. Guillain of 7, Rue d'Artois had the dealing with the car and I gave him the whole of the papers and did not receive any back. There was at the time about 9 cars being shipped to England, and Mr. Guillain had to deal with 4 or 5, there was a hitch whether we should be able to get over and it was probably due to this that the winding up of the job was not completed. I have no further knowledge of what transpired. Your letter regarding IS4-EX. I perfectly understand the situation, only that I do not know what transpired at your meeting of P.N. and Briggs, etc. Therefore I am in the dark as regards to what was actually passed or otherwise. We are running the car on one route only as all our other routes around here would very quickly break the car up. This you will understand is making the job a bit risky, as we are having to go on the same ground three times per day. However I have instructed the drivers to use every precaution and to definitely not drive fast through any of the villages or towns. noted M/SS{S. Smith} Our trouble with loss of water, as reported to you, is due to faulty design of the radiator inlet pipe. I am enclosing a sketch showing a plan view, so that you may see definitely what is actually happening. The water coming out of the inlet into the radiator is being driven direct on to the drain pipe tubes, with the result that the stream of water on either side is divided upwards into the radiator or filler cap, then down the drain pipes and lost. The force of the water coming out of the inlet pipe seems to point that the pump may be too efficient. We should be pleased if you could verify this. We have plugged up one drain pipe and half the other, and with this arrangement we are still losing 2 gallons of water on every 200 miles run. There are definitely no other leaks on the engine. We have had considerable trouble already with dirty petrol, the filter quickly becoming choked with fluff and sand. Unfortunately withnthe constant dismantling of the filter the glass container has become cracked. Would you therefore please send us out a metal cover. Also unfortunately the rear tank petrol cap has been lost. Would you please send us out another cap. As Mr. Northey remarked it seems it would be advisable to have a chain fitted to the cap to prevent this occuring. | ||