GB306788A - Improvements in and connected with reversing gearing especially for motor-boat propulsion - Google Patents

Abstract

306,788. Hounsfield, L. H. July 23, 1928. Reversing-gearing. - Between an internal-combustion engine and a reversing-gear is arranged a centrifugal clutch, which does not pick up drive until the engine has accelerated. The invention is specially applicable upon motorboats, where the starting torque is not heavy. The reversing lever is connected with a throttle control and a brake or other synchronizing device to facilitate reversing. The reversing-gear may be of any positive type with toothed wheels on chains, the change-over being effected by a change of mesh of gear teeth or dog clutches. In the form shown in Figs. 1. and II., a double clutch 13 is shifted by a lever 15 moving in a gate 22. The centrifugal clutch 3, Fig. IV., of known type carried by the engine fly-wheel A is normally held disengaged by a spring 9 in which the tension increases faster than the centrifugal force on weight 7 as the engine speeds up. When the control lever 15 is moved out of a notch in gate 22 to become unlocked, it turns about a pivot 16<1>, Fig. III., and so through a lever 26<1> operates a synchronizing brake, &c., 26. This same unlocking movement, as shown in Fig. V., through spring linkage 29 operates carburettor throttle 28 to slow the engine down. A hand control for the throttle is shown at 31. In changing between forward and reverse driving, the lever 15 is moved freely between positions 23 and 24, Fig. I. On release of lever 15, spring 25, Fig. III., turns it into a locking notch F. N, or R, Fig. I., and the throttle and the brake &c. are released. The brake 26 may act on either the driving or the driven shaft of the gearing, and the clutch 3 automatically opens as the engine slows down.