Shrewsbury firm keeps historic engine running
A Shropshire oil firm has solved a headache for an enthusiast who has restored a salvaged engine from a crashed World War Two fighter to working order.
Peter Grieve, owner of Flight Engineering in Leeds, turned to Morris Lubricants of Shrewsbury for oil for his Rolls-Royce Merlin XX engine.
He had found that the previous oil had degraded quickly, and has found that Morris' Golden Film SAE 50 is the closest to what was originally specified for use in the engine, and has given a 20 per cent improvement in oil pressure.
The oil is supplied to Peter by Steve Brownless, Morris Lubricants’ area sales manager for Yorkshire and the East Midlands.
“There is always a deep satisfaction in being able to support high precision heritage ventures of this kind that create so much interest in this sector,” said Steve.
Peter’s Rolls-Royce Merlin XX was one of two engines that originally powered a Beaufighter IIF used by the Fighter Interception Unit at Ford, West Sussex, for night-fighting techniques. Tragically, the plane crashed into a canal in Chichester on September 3, 1941, with the loss of the three crew.
The wreck, which was embedded 20 feet into the ground, was excavated in 1978 and Peter acquired the two engines in 1994, beginning a slow restoration with help from Robin Byers in Carlisle.
The engine has attended air shows and vintage rallies since 2000, running more than 1,500 times.
Beaufighters are more normally associated with the Bristol Hercules engine, but the IIF variant used the famous Merlin.
