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).
The utility of a water thermometer in a car, particularly for winter conditions and preventing freezing or boiling.
| Identifier | Morton\M2.5\ img007 | |
| Date | 19th July 1920 | |
| Contd: -2- Winter. If a driver sees on his instrument board the water temperature shown as 80°C, he may not realise that under certain conditions the radiator might still freeze although the water shown by the Thermometer was at 80°C. We suggest that if he has no Thermometer he will, when the weather is exceptionally cold, take the ordinary precautions to prevent the water freezing. The only time we can see that the Thermometer would be useful is when the radiator is blanked up in Winter; it would show then when the radiator was blanked up too much so that it caused the water to boil. We doubt whether it is worth while carrying a Thermometer the whole of the time on the car for that reason. If the water boils it soon becomes obvious to the driver. The blanketting of the radiator would then be adjusted to suit the conditions. It may of course be that we do not appreciate the American conditions but we do not consider that Mr. Olley has put forward a very strong case for retaining the Thermometer when a Thermostat is fitted. Hs.{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} | ||