Tamper resistive odometer
AssigneeFord Motor Company
InventorGary F. Woodward
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A tamper resistive odometer having a construction whereby manual attempt to reverse the number setting thereon, by separating the pinion gear engagement with number wheel gears, results in a fractured pinion gear that permanently disengages all the pinion gears from the number wheel gears.
Claims7
In a multi-wheel type odometer utilizing an up-counting pinion gear between each pair of adjacent wheels and engaged with at least one of said wheels freely mounted on a common pinion shaft, an improvement comprising:
- a brittle pinion shaft rigidly mounted so as to fracture in the event attempts are made to disengage any up-counting pinion gear from its associated wheel.
A tamper resistive odometer having characteristics which cause the odometer to indicate that the highest accumulated mileage indication thereon has been tampered with, comprising:
- a housing providing rigid support to said odometer;
- a pinion shaft secured to said housing;
- a plurality of pinion gears freely and commonly mounted on said pinion shaft;
- a number wheel shaft in said housing;
- a plurality of pinion driven number wheels mounted on said wheel shaft, each of said number wheels containing gear teeth and each number wheel engaging a corresponding pinion by said gear teeth;
- said pinion shaft being formed of a brittle material being susceptible to fracture when said shaft is bent to a point whereby any pinion gear is forced from engagement with the gear teeth of its corresponding number wheel.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.