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).
Test report on methods to reduce radiator movement and improve ride quality on poor road surfaces.
| Identifier | WestWitteringFiles\T\2January1929-June1929\ Scan172 | |
| Date | 8th March 1929 guessed | |
| contd :- -2- We therefore replaced these original feet. Over our test road they were certainly better than the last stage of the LeC. foot but we did not feel that the car would be acceptable with the amount of radiator movement remaining. The efficiency of our testing has of course improved with better weather conditions and we have found a stretch of road with a poor surface where one can do 70 m.p.h. This more or less reproduces Continental conditions. We confirmed that single point mounting the body at the front made an appreciable improvement, but as this does not seem a very practical proposition and is most undesirable from the point of view of car control and steering selectivity the result does not seem of much value. We did not persevere with making the whole body rigid with the chassis and finally fastened to the dash because as all our previous experience has indicated that this is not a satisfactory arrangement for closed cars. We confirmed that the dampers at the clutch casing and at the rear of the gearbox, whether used in con-junction with solid or flexible rubber engine feet, do not make very much improvement. We are therefore faced with the fact that with the cross in the frame we do not know of any practical means of entirely eliminating radiator movement without making engine roughness very pronounced. We do not think that the extent to which we have been able to reduce the radiator movement with the cross in the frame would be acceptable to customers who tour abroad. | ||