JPH017677Y2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed description of the invention] The present invention relates to a motor tricycle, and particularly to a motor tricycle whose front body can be tilted in the left and right direction.
The present invention relates to a tricycle which prevents the front body from tilting in the left-right direction when traveling at low speeds and when stopped.

Since tricycles touch the ground at three points, they can run stably, and they also have the advantage of not having to use stands or legs to support the vehicle when parking or stopping. However, on the other hand, since the vehicle body cannot be tilted like a motorcycle, the speed must be considerably reduced during cornering to prevent overturning due to centrifugal force. In recent years, so-called lean tricycles have been proposed to overcome these drawbacks. In other words, this lean tricycle is
It is composed of a front vehicle body having one front wheel and a rear vehicle body having two rear wheels, and the front vehicle body is capable of tilting in the left-right direction. Therefore, by appropriately tilting the front vehicle body in the direction in which the vehicle is turning, it is possible to corner with a feeling similar to that of a motorcycle.

By the way, in such a lean tricycle,
The problem is how to maintain the independent posture of the front vehicle body when driving at low speeds and when stopped. For this reason, various self-sustaining devices for the front body of the vehicle have been proposed.
In the conventional self-supporting device, the function of damping the tilting motion of the front vehicle body and the function of making the front vehicle body self-supporting were performed by separate parts. For this reason, the device has become large and structurally complex.

The present invention was devised in view of these circumstances, and its purpose is to provide a self-supporting device that has both the above-mentioned damping function and self-supporting function, and its gist is as follows. The place is 1
A tricycle comprising a front body having two front wheels and tiltable in the left-right direction, and a rear body having two rear wheels, wherein a hydraulic damper is disposed between the front body and the rear body, A piston having an oil hole opened and closed by an on-off valve is slidably provided in the cylinder of the hydraulic damper, and the tip of a piston rod connected to the piston is pivoted to one of the front and rear vehicle bodies. At the same time, the cylinder is pivotally connected to the other vehicle body, and as the front vehicle body tilts, the opening/closing valve is operated to open and close the oil passage hole, so that the piston is connected to the cylinder. The reason is that it is configured to move or stop relatively.

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below based on the drawings. As shown in FIG. 1, the tricycle 1 consists of a front body 2 and a rear body 3.
The rear vehicle body 3 has a pair of left and right rear wheels 5. An engine 6 is disposed in the rear vehicle body 3 and drives a pair of rear wheels 5 via a differential device (not shown). The front body 2 and the rear body 3 are connected by a connecting shaft 12 as shown in FIG.
It is possible to tilt left and right around the center.
In FIG. 1, 7 is a seat section, 8 is a seat column, 9 is a handle, 10 is a footrest, and 11
indicates a reaction coil.

Next, a self-sustaining device for the frame front body 2 will be explained. This self-supporting device is composed of a hydraulic damper 13 as shown in FIGS. 2 and 3.
This hydraulic damper 13 has a piston 15 slidably inserted into a cylinder 14 as shown in FIG. As shown in FIG. 3, it is pivotally connected to the rear vehicle body 3 by a pin 18. On the other hand, the mounting hole 19 provided at one end of the cylinder 14 is connected to the pin 21 at the lower end of the lever 20.
It is pivotally connected at. The intermediate portion of the lever 20 is rotatably supported on the rear vehicle body 3 by a pin 22 as shown in FIGS. 2 and 3, and the upper end of the lever 20 is connected to a connecting rod 23 and a pin 2.
The seat column 8 is connected to the intermediate portion of the seat column 8 via lines 4 and 25.

More specifically, as shown in FIG. 4, the hydraulic damper 13 has a piston 15 formed in the shape of a hollow disk, and a pair of oil holes 26 on both left and right walls of the piston 15 are provided at projected positions. It is formed. A disk-shaped shutter valve 27 is rotatably disposed within the piston 15. This shutter valve 27 is formed with a communication hole 28, and as shown in FIGS.
They can communicate with each other or be cut off from each other.

On the other hand, the piston rod 16 is made of a hollow pipe, and an operating rod 29 is rotatably inserted into the piston rod 16. One end of this operating rod 29 is connected to the shutter valve 2.
It is fixed at the center of 7. Also, the operation rod 2
A rotating lever 30 is fixed to the other end of the tricycle as shown in FIGS. (which can be disposed at the same position) are interconnected by a link rod 31 or the like.

The tricycle 1 and its self-sustaining device are constructed as described above, and the self-sustaining posture of the front vehicle body 2 is naturally maintained by the restoring moment caused by the trail during medium to high speed travel. Therefore, there is no need to operate the self-sustaining device of the front vehicle body 2, and the shutter valve 27 can be set to the rotational position shown in FIG. 6 by operating an operating lever (not shown).

However, when the vehicle is running at low speed or when the vehicle is stopped, it becomes difficult to maintain the independent posture of the front vehicle body 2.
In this case, the driver can easily maintain the independent posture of the front vehicle body 2 by pulling the link rod 31 in the direction of arrow a in FIG. 5 by operating the operating lever. That is, when the reloading rod 31 is pulled in the direction of arrow a as described above, the rotating lever 30 is rotated in the direction of arrow b in FIG. 5, and the shutter valve 27 is rotated counterclockwise in FIG. rotate in the direction. As a result, the shutter valve 27 is
When the rotating position shown in the figure is reached, the pair of oil holes 26 are shut off by the shutter valve 27, and the oil in the cylinder 14 cannot pass through the oil holes 26. Therefore, the piston 15 cannot move relative to the cylinder 14, and the front vehicle body 2 is prevented from tilting in the left-right direction about the connecting shaft 12.

When cornering is to be performed next, the shutter valve 27 is rotated again to the position shown in FIG. 6 by operating the operating lever, thereby making it possible to tilt the front vehicle body 2 in the left-right direction. That is, when the shutter valve 27 is rotated as shown in FIG. 6, the pair of oil passage holes 26 of the piston 15 are communicated with each other through the communication hole 28 of the shutter valve 27.
The oil in the cylinder 14 can now pass through the pair of oil passage holes 26. As a result, the piston 15 can move relative to the cylinder 14, and the front body 2 can tilt in the left-right direction around the connecting shaft 12, allowing smooth cornering. become. In addition, at this time,
Since the oil flow resistance in the pair of oil holes 26 acts on the piston 15, the tilting motion of the front vehicle body 2 is appropriately damped.

Although one embodiment of the present invention has been described above, the present invention is not limited to the structure shown in the above embodiment and can be modified in various ways. For example, hydraulic damper 1
3 may be arranged in a straight line between the rear vehicle body 3 and the chute column 8 as shown in FIG.

Further, in the above embodiment, the pair of oil passage holes 26 are opened and closed by the shutter valve 27, but they may be opened and closed by a solenoid valve or the like. In addition to manually opening and closing the shutter valve 27, a microcomputer is used to input information such as the vehicle speed, the slope of the front vehicle body 2, and the slope of the road surface.
It is also possible to automatically open and close the shutter valve 27 under preset conditions.

As mentioned above, the present invention is equipped with a hydraulic damper having a piston that is linked to the tilting movement of the front vehicle body, and an on-off valve is attached to the oil hole provided in the piston, and the on-off valve is opened and closed by the opening and closing operation of the on-off valve. Since this is a tricycle that allows or stops the tilting motion of the front body, the hydraulic damper has a damping function that damps the tilting motion of the front body, and a self-sustaining function that maintains the independent posture of the front body. Both functions can be combined, and the self-supporting device can be made compact and structurally simple.

Therefore, the tricycle equipped with the hydraulic damper of the present invention can reduce the product cost compared to the conventional tricycle equipped with a self-supporting device, and is extremely economically advantageous.

In addition, the front body can be fixed at any angle of inclination relative to the rear body, so for example, the front body can be fixed at an angle of inclination that corresponds to the degree of inclination of the road surface, which improves the handling stability of the tricycle. You can improve your performance. Furthermore, the piston of the hydraulic damper is
Since the maximum stroke is regulated by the cylinder, there is no need to provide any stopper or the like to limit the maximum inclination angle of the front body to a predetermined angle, and the structure of the tricycle can be simplified.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

The drawings show one embodiment of the present invention, in which Fig. 1 is a side view of a tricycle, Fig. 2 is a front view conceptually showing the structure of the self-supporting device, and Fig. 3 is Fig. 2. FIG. 4 is a longitudinal cross-sectional view of the hydraulic damper, FIG. 5 is a side view as viewed from the - arrow in FIG. 4, and FIG. 7 is a sectional view showing the shutter valve in a closed state in FIG. 6, and FIG. 8 is a front view conceptually showing another embodiment of the present invention. 1...Auto tricycle, 2...Front body, 3...Rear body, 12...Connection shaft, 13...Hydraulic damper,
14...Cylinder, 15...Piston, 16...
Piston rod, 26...oil hole, 27...shutter valve, 28...communication hole, 29...operation rod.

Claims (1)

[Scope of utility model registration request] In a tricycle equipped with a front body having one front wheel and tiltable in the left-right direction, and a rear body having two rear wheels, a hydraulic damper is disposed between the front body and the rear body. A piston having an oil passage hole opened and closed by an on-off valve is slidably provided in the cylinder of the hydraulic damper, and a tip of a piston rod connected to the piston is attached to one of the front and rear vehicle bodies. At the same time, the cylinder is pivotally connected to the other vehicle body, and as the front vehicle body tilts, the opening/closing valve is operated to open and close the oil passage hole, so that the piston is connected to the cylinder. An automatic tricycle characterized by being configured to move or stop relative to each other.