GB625120A - Improvements in automatic clutches - Google Patents

Abstract

625,120. Friction clutches. KIRKPATRICK, H. G. July 25, 1946, No. 22200. Convention date, Aug. 25, 1945. [Class 80 (ii)] In a centrifugal friction main or tail clutch for motor vehicles of the kind having weighted driving shoes sliding radially outward to contact a driven drum and in which cam means delay the movement of the shoes in both directions to increase engaging and decrease disengaging speed, compression springs are interposed between the actual friction members and the weighted portions of the shoes. As shown, sleeves 21, Fig. 1, slidable on the arms 12 of a driving spider 11 carry friction segments 19 co-acting with a driven drum 5 and have weighted portions 22 with a limited radial movement relative to the sleeves. Compression springs 32 normally hold the members 19, 22 spaced apart. Annular side plates 13, Fig. 2, held together on the spider 11 by springs 33, carry cam members 18 co-acting with balls 25 held apart in axial bores in the members 22 by spacers 24. Clutch engagement commences only when the balls, by pressing apart the plates 13, ride up the cams 18, and is completed by the sudden complete compression of the springs 32 when the balls pass the crest of the cams. Clutch disengagement is similarly prevented until the balls are thrust inwards past the cam crests, and is then sudden and positive. The pins 12 are lubricated through passages 42, 43 in the driving shaft 10 communicating with passages 41 in the spider 11. In Figs. 3 and 4 (not shown) the side plates 13 are replaced by flexible diaphragms rigidly bolted to the spider 11, and in Figs. 5 and 6 (not shown) the side plates 13 are fixedly screwed to the spider and the spacer 24 is replaced by a compression spring urging the balls 25 apart.