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).
40/50 engine cooling, the effects of running without water, and experiments to prevent boiling.
| Identifier | WestWitteringFiles\I\June1922\ Scan70 | |
| Date | 13th June 1922 | |
| ORIGINAL To R.{Sir Henry Royce} from Hs.{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} c. to CJ. c. to E.{Mr Elliott - Chief Engineer} c. to Ds. c. to Hy.{Tom Haldenby - Plant Engineer} c. to ZP. Hs{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair}7/T13.6.22. 40/50 COOLING. *784 X766 X3456 Y4225 There have been a great number of cases where a 40/50 engine has been run short of water and in some cases run without water, but we do not know of any case where this condition has caused cracked cylinders. We have had cases of post-war cars which have been run without water until the aluminium pistons have actually melted - there was no damage to the cylinders. We should say that we are absolutely free from cracked cylinders on the 40/50 due to any conditions of running on the road. Sometime ago we carried out a number of tests on the 40/50 in order to prevent loss of water when boiling. We made a number of experiments but none of them showed any very definite improvement over the present standard and we postponed the tests until the hot weather when we could carry out tests on the road instead of having to try to reproduce the conditions on the dynamometer. Experiments which we tried were as follows :- (1) An extra top water pipe was fitted, connected to the four core plug holes which come between the valve caps. This pipe was .75" dia. and a separate connection was made on the radiator for this pipe. (2) The top water pipe was made taper from 1" to 2" dia. on the radiator end. (3) Various types of steam separators were tried between the outlet from the cylinders and the radiator. Contd. | ||