Letter from Wilcox-Rich Corporation regarding American practices on engine inserts and valve seats.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 158\4\ scan0053 | |
| Date | 23th June 1936 | |
| WILCOX-RICH CORPORATION DIVISION OF EATON MANUFACTURING COMPANY 9771 FRENCH ROAD DETROIT, MICHIGAN PRODUCTS RICH VALVES VALVE TAPPETS VALVE SEAT RINGS VALVE-O-MATIC HYDRAULIC LIFTERS PLANTS SAGINAW MARSHALL BATTLE CREEK June 23, 1936 Dict. 6-22-36 Mr. W. A. {Mr Adams} Robotham Rolls-Royce, Ltd. Derby, England Dear Sir: In answer to your request for information regarding the American practice on inserts, we hear all sorts of stories in connection with their use. Stellite faced rings were primarily developed in trying to get good results in the most severe types of installations. A great many of the smaller cars, where the outputs are not high, are using various types of steel, such as high tungsten, a chromium-molybdenum steel, etc., which seem to give pretty fair results unless the output is stepped up fairly high, or where the condition of operation is such that it requires considerable wide-open throttle or nearly so at near top speeds. Where this condition exists, nothing seems to do as well as the Stellite. One of the biggest problems in this Country in heavy duty units has been to make an insert that will stay tight and we believe the best practice is to adopt a backing material which has a coefficient of expansion slightly less than that of the cylinder material. It has been our experience that changes in iron in the cylinder are not very beneficial although it is always possible someone will run across a combination that might help. We suspect a great deal of the washing away comes from leaking valves which reach high temperatures, so that even though you use a valve which is cooler nevertheless there is a chance of distortion taking place, which naturally raises the temperature extremely high. There is quite a bit of work being done at the present time by the various manufacturers in actually going after the distortion problem in a serious manner, particularly with respect to the L-Head type of engines. With reference to your question regarding chilling in the vicinity of the valve seat when casting the head, while it is possible that some manufacturers are doing this, it has not come to my attention except that while working with a prominent truck manufacturer this particular thing was tried without success. | ||
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).