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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).
Chassis performance, detailing issues and improvements over previous models.

Identifier  ExFiles\Box 108\2\  scan0129
Date  17th August 1938
  
-2-

We also consider the taper packings under the axle are necessary although none of the chassis gave trouble with the 47 m.p.h. vibration. We have had experience of this on Experimental Cars and know it can be very unpleasant and would be a source of complaint if it occurred in a customer's hands.

As regards the troubles we have had, only two engines in chassis gave trouble with noisy engine gears and these were fairly easily overcome. We consider this feature is a great advance over the previous 25/30 type of engine gear. In three cases we had trouble with the Bronze Wheel of the Skew gear driving the distributor and the oil pump. This g ear appears to wear quickly and causes a knock. In the case of Bentley and the old 25/30 the distributor was driven by a worm gear and this never gave us any trouble.

Three gear boxes were condemned for various reasons, they were all troubles which we were able to overcome fairly easily and should not occur again when we commence production.

We did not have occasion to condemn one rear axle for noise.

We made a number of oil and petrol consumption tests and over a distance of 100 m.p.h. at an average speed of 40 m.p.h. the average oil consumption works out at 2,000 m.p.g. and the petrol consumption 15 m.p.g. We consider the cooling of this engine is very good and under normal running conditions the temperature never exceeds 80° and one can idle a long time without any appreciable rise in temperature. We do not anticipate any trouble in this respect under London traffic conditions.

Generally we consider this chassis to be a great advance over the old 25/30HP type of chassis, especially from the steering and general controlability point of view.

[Signature]
LA{L. A. Archer}
  
  


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