GB595300A - Improvements in or relating to joint constructions - Google Patents

Abstract

595,300. Universal joints. THOMPSON PRODUCTS, Inc. June 8, 1944, No. 11005. Convention date, Jan. 5. [Class 65 (ii)] [Also in Group XXXIV] In a joint, particularly for motor-vehicle steering-gear, in which a stud 11 is rotatable in a bearing member 25 mounted for tilting movement in a housing 10, the two pairs of bearing surfaces are held in engagement by independent springs, so that they can be unequally loaded, and the stud is mounted in anti-friction bearings in the bearing member, the spring holding these parts in engagement being carried by the bearing member so that the latter forms a self-contained assembly with the stud. In the form shown the antifriction bearings are tapered rollers 42 engaging conical surfaces on the stud 11 and in the bearing member 25, and these parts are held together by a spring plate 33 closing the lower end of the member 25 and having a partspherical recess which bears on a part-spherical projection 35 on the end of the stud 11. The outer surface of the bearing member 25 is of spherical form, bearing in a corresponding surface in the housing 10, and these surfaces are held together by a spring 22 bearing on the closure plate of the housing and on a cup 23 having a central part-spherical depression fitting a corresponding protuberance on the spring plate 33. In a modification, the projection 35 on the end of the stud is replaced by an annular ball-race receiving ball bearings which run on the plate 33, or on a wear-plate resting on the plate 33 and located thereon by projections entering the recess in the plate 33 ; the ball-race is in the form of a groove with walls of larger radius, in cross-section, than the radius of the balls, so as to provide two-point contact.