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).
Vehicle test failures including broken front wings, clutch slipping, and engine vibration.
| Identifier | Morton\M2.6\ img048 | |
| Date | 12th September 1952 guessed | |
| -9- place with wire. The most important matter, however, regarding the body was the front wings, which appeared to be altogether too weak for this test. Both the wings themselves and the front and rear wing stays were broken during the full period of the test. It is suggested that a slight stiffening of the forward wing stay is desirable, but the maximum improvement would be made by some method of finishing off the leading edge of the wing, so as to considerably strengthen it, e.g. by finishing it off with a small angle iron. The failure always starts at the same place, i.e. at the point where the dome of the wing proper joins the wing valence. The front edge cracks at this point and the crack rapidly works up the wing, thus throwing the inertia stresses due to the weight of the wing, on to the front wing stay which rapidly fails. On the last day's running, a rather severe vibration was noticed above 50 m.p.h. which had not been observed before. Also, driving up the hill at Boulogne on third speed the clutch started slipping. This did not last very long, but on the following morning, on starting up, I had several clutch jaggers. Neither the slipping nor the jaggering had occurred before. On running the car for a short time yesterday, before finally sending it to Derby, an engine vibration was noticed at 23 m.p.h. which had not been previously experienced. This, in conjunction with the period observed above 50 m.p.h. would seem to point to the desirability of examining the slipper drive. ------------o0o------------ | ||