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).
Typed letter from France reporting on vehicle issues including water loss, fuel filter problems, and dynamo output.
Identifier | ExFiles\Box 11\2\ 02-page014 | |
Date | 19th December 1928 | |
(4) Hotel de France. Chateauroux, Indre, France. Hs.{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} Deroy. from GWH.{George W. Hancock - Head Chateauroux} Dec. 19th. 1928. re. 12-EX - when this car left Boulogne, the General Transport people dealt with it. Their Agent Mr. Guillain of 7, Rue d' Artois had the dealing with the car and I gave him the whole of the papers and did not receive any back. There was at the time about 9 cars being shipped to England, and Mr. Guillain had to deal with 4 or 5. There was a hitch whether we should be able to get over and it was probably due to this that the winding up of the job was not completed. I have no further knowledge of what transpired. Your letter regarding 18-EX, I perfectly understand the situation, only that I do not know what transpired at your meeting of FN. and Comm. Briggs etc. Therefore I am in the dark as regards to what was actually passed or otherwise. We are running the car on one route only as all our other routes around here would very quickly break the car up. This you will understand is making the job a bit risky, as we are having to go on the same ground three times per day. However I have instructed the drivers to use every precaution and to definitely not drive fast through any of the villages or towns. Our trouble with loss of water, as reported, to you, is due to faulty design of the radiator inlet pipe. I am enclosing a sketch showing a plan view, so that you may see definitely what is actually happening. The water coming out of the inlet into the radiator is being driven direct on to the drain pipe tubes, with the result that the stream of water on either side is divided upwards into the radiator filler cap, then down the drain pipes and lost. The force of the water coming out of the inlet pipe seems to point that the pump may be too efficient. We should be pleased if you could verify this. We have plugged up one drain pipe and half the other, and with this arrangement we are still losing 2 galls. of water on every 200 miles run. There are definitely no other leaks on the engine. We have have had considerable trouble already with dirty petrol, the filter quickly becoming choked with fluff and sand. Unfortunately with the constant dismantling of the filter the glass container has become cracked. Would you therefore please send us out a metal cover. Also unfortunately the rear tank petrol cap has been lost. Would you therefore please send out another cap. As FN. remarked it seems it would be advisable to have a chain fitted to the cap to prevent this occurring. The dynamo gives a very poor output, its maximum charging rate being 6 amps. This is insufficient to maintain contd :- | ||