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).
Investigation report into a small fire on Chassis 1-AL, concluding it was an accidental electrical short from the Klaxon horn.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 113\1\ scan0099 | |
| Date | 14th February 1929 | |
| H.{Arthur M. Hanbury - Head Complaints} MK4/RK14.2.29. Re:- Chassis 1-AL. There was a small fire on this car on Monday morning last, the 11th. I was not there myself but Mc.Culloch reported to me that he was washing down the engine in the garage, with a small open tin of paraffin in his left hand and a brush in his right, he had just finished and was lifting away from the engine when there was a sudden flare up. The paraffin was of course spilt over the car, and the floor and himself, but was quickly put out with one of the garage extinguishers. The only damage was a small patch of paint blistered at the bottom of the offside front wing, owing to a rag lying on it catching fire; and one leg of McCulloch's trousers burnt from the knee downwards. Croalls re-cellulosed the wing immediately and I shall probably have a small bill for this in due course. Can the uniform trousers be replaced. he was wearing an overall coat but I think the stuff must have splashed up off the floor. I have gone very carefully into it and am satisfied it was a pure accident. He was not smoking and there were no matches about, it was the offside of the engine, i.e. away from the exhaust, and the engine was not running. The only way we can reconstruct it is that previously he had washed out the brush in petrol and some of it may have been still hanging about his left hand and a rag he was holding; when lifting away the tin he must have touched the body of the Klaxon with his hand and made a connection. I had not realised that any part of the outside of a Klaxon was alive, other than the terminals and they have insulated caps, but on examining it I find that the two bare studs at the bottom half way between the terminals are alive and are insulated from the body, so it must have been the outside one of these he touched. MK.{R. E. B. Meade-King} | ||