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).
Letter from Wellworthy Piston Rings Ltd. regarding bearing delivery and a successful engine modification on a Bentley.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 115\4\ scan0053 | |
| Date | 12th March 1940 | |
| 1020a. WORKS TELEPHONE LYMINGTON 520 WORKS TELEGRAMS "WELLWORTHY" PRIVATE TELEPHONE LYMINGTON 232 MANAGING DIRECTOR'S OFFICE WELLWORTHY PISTON RINGS LTD., LYMINGTON HANTS JH/KES 12th March, 1940. W. A.{Mr Adams} Robotham, Esq., Messrs. Rolls-Royce Ltd., DERBY. Dear Mr. Robotham, Thank you for your letter of the 11th instant. I have given the information with regard to the .010" chamfer to Mr. Blackith and he is arranging to produce the bearings accordingly. He tells me that we shall be able to deliver in about a fortnight to three weeks. One other thing I thought you would be interested in. My Bentley has recently been using far too much oil. It got down from its original figure of about 1,200 to between 400 and 500, so knowing the difficult times with regard to the Service Department, I thought we would put some Simplex in it. We took it down in our garage here and carefully measured up the cylinders. It has done about 50,000 miles; 44,000 on the clock and about 6,000 on the clock it originally had. The worst cylinder was worn .075" and the average was about .065". The ring grooves themselves and rings were in good condition. We fitted the pistons up as follows:- 1 compression ring, one Simplex ring in the middle groove, drilling two holes through into the back of the piston, and one slotted scraper spring-loaded, and really it is like a new engine. The oil consumption has gone back to what it was originally and the Simplex and spring-loaded scraper seem to have helped to quieten down the engine enormously. The bearings were absolutely perfect and the whole engine is a thing to be very proud of. It occurred to me that if you have any people who have Bentleys that they want to keep on running even if their cylinders are worn .010" or .012" and they don't want to rebore | ||