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).
Faults with a car's exhaust manifolds, engine fabric coupling, and clutch assembly.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 11\2\ 02-page035 | |
| Date | 26th December 1928 | |
| 36 Hôtel de France, Châteauroux, Indre. December 26th. 1928 To: Hs.{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} Derby We wired you to-day as follows:- 1) "DAYS MILES 400 TOTAL 5077 CAR HELD UP TO FIT SILENCER PIPE AND ATTEND TO CLUTCH" 2) "EXHAUST MANIFOLDS BURNT RIGHT THROUGH STOP INTERMEDIATE EXHAUST PIPE ALMOST SAME CONDITION REQUIRE NEW ONE" 3) "ENGINE FABRIC COUPLING FAILING SEND NEW ONE OUT WITH 20-HP CAR" [Handwritten: h/a M/SS{S. Smith}] Upon dismantling the exhaust manifolds and taking the asbestos wrapping off, the two side pipes fell away. These have been burnt right through. The intermediate exhaust pipe between the manifold and the silencer is also scaling very badly under the asbestos wrapping. At the first bend it will not be long before it is burnt through. We doubt very much whether these pipes will stand up under ordinary conditions for any length of time. [Handwritten: h/a M/SS{S. Smith}] The engine fabric coupling will quickly be of no use. This is very important and should be attended to immediately for production. The bolt holes in the coupling have elongated to twice their diameter, the outside of the fabric is badly bulged through this. We are surprised that this design of coupling bolt housing should have been used, as a very similar design was tried out some considerable time ago and was a complete failure. Similar to the way this one has gone. We are sending you this report through quickly so that production will not start with this coupling. [Handwritten: h/a M/SS{S. Smith}] We have dismantled the clutch to-day and found that the clutch plate was not free on the ball race housing. This bearing does not appear to have any chance of receiving any oil whatsoever. It is not the bearing in the flywheel, but the bearing on the clutch spigot which was at fault. We are making a detailed examination of the car and will let you have our report as soon as possible, but as those mentioned above are important we are letting you have these details. There does not appear to be any other serious fault but the one which I have mentioned previously, the very bad oil leak from rear of engine which we find is flung all over the inside of the clutch case and saturates the clutch brake fabric, making this practically useless. We are enclosing sketches of the exhaust | ||