Sump arrangement with baffling

Abstract

Oil sump arrangements, such as transmission oil sumps and lubricating oil sumps used with the drive train of automotive vehicles are divided into an upper chamber and a lower chamber with a filter media disposed between the upper chamber and the lower chamber. The oil being circulated to a transmission or an engine pools in the lower chamber and is sucked by a suction tube out of the lower chamber for recirculation. In order to prevent the oil from pooling or accumulating under centrifugal force away from the suction tube so that air is ingested by the suction tube and the transmission or engine momentarily starved for oil, a plurality of baffle plates are placed in the lower chamber and extended parallel to the longitudinal axis of the vehicle which is the normal direction of motion of the vehicle. The baffle plates obstruct movement of the oil away from the suction tube inlet. In addition, the filter media is preferably a pleated filter media with the pleats extending parallel to the extent of the baffle plates so that the filter media also discourages lateral movement of the oil away from the suction tube inlet.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.