Off-the-road four-wheel drive vehicle
AssigneeYamaha Hatsudoki Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorsDouglas C. Foote, James E. Grinde
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A four-wheel drive recreational vehicle having an independent front suspension system and a clutch arrangement for normally driving the vehicle from the front wheels only, but capable of sensing slippage of the rear wheels to thereby couple the engine's output shaft to the front wheels as well. The front wheels are equipped with tires which are more narrow than those used on the rear wheels, but the tread width of the front wheels is made larger than that of the rear wheels to thereby provide adequate space for the driving connections between the front differential and the wheels so that only modest bending forces are experienced by the U-joint coupling the driven shaft between the front differential and the wheels' driven axles.
Claims6
An off-road recreational vehicle comprising, in combination:
- (a) a frame;
- (b) front and rear pairs of wheels, each having relatively wide, ultra-low pressure tires mounted thereon, each of said wheels being secured to an axle member;
- (c) a limited slip differential means including a drive input disposed between said axle members of said front pair of wheels;
- (d) driving means drivenly connected to the axle members of said rear pair of wheels;
- (e) means for independently suspending said frame relative to said axle members of said front pair of wheels and for resiliently securing said frame to said driving means connected to said axle members of said rear pair of wheels;
- (f) an engine supported on said frame between said front and rear pairs of wheels, said engine having an output shaft directly coupled to the drive means connected to said rear axle member;
- and
- (g) over-running clutch means operatively coupled to said output shaft of said engine and interposed between said output shaft of said engine and said drive input of said limited slip differential for applying a driving force to said front pair of wheels only when slipage exists between said rear pair of wheels and the ground.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.