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).
Instructions for testing new pistons, a cylinder head gasket, and spark plugs on a car in France.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 82\1\ scan0057 | |
| Date | 25th March 1933 | |
| G.W.Hancock, c/o Hotel de France, Chateauroux, Indre. FRANCE. To GWH.{George W. Hancock - Head Chateauroux} from Hs{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair}/Rm.{William Robotham - Chief Engineer} Hs{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair}/Rm.{William Robotham - Chief Engineer}1/KT.25.3.33. We are sending Dodd over with the pistons and you should meet him in Paris. These pistons will have the new circlips so that they will be the best we know of for reliability, and are the standard die cast piston which it is proposed to use in order to prevent any possibility of pistons hitting the cylinder head. On production the compression space in the head is being modified to get the right compression ratio with these pistons, and a copper and asbestos cylinder head gasket. We should like you to fit the copper and asbestos gasket which we brought out with the car. Having done this, we are anxious to know if you can reproduce this failure, because if pistons are going to fail in the manner just experienced, we must know at once. Personally we think that the last set of pistons sent out to you must have missed a heat treatment. We want you to run on the Montlhery track at whatever speed you can average whilst keeping your oil temperature down to 100°C. We want you to do as much work on Montlhery as you can conveniently, without upsetting your Chateauroux arrangements. It struck us that you might be able to do 300 or 400 miles on the track every two or three days, but you will work it in as best you can. We cannot do this test on the test bed because we have smashed up our only other available engine, and we shall not have another built until Easter. We are sending you out some X.339 plugs which are exactly similar to the copper electrode ones except that a nickel tip has been fitted. Will you please run these and give us your opinion on them. Hs{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair}/Rm.{William Robotham - Chief Engineer} | ||