Cam shaft support and enclosure assembly

Abstract

A cam shaft support and enclosure assembly includes a tube formed with a flat on its inboard end. An outboard end of the tube is supported on a spider which in turn is mounted on an axle of a heavy duty vehicle. A bushing is mounted in each of the tube ends, and a shaft is rotatably mounted in and passes completely through the bushings and sealed and lubricated tube. An S-cam is integrally formed on an exposed outboard end of the shaft and the exposed inboard end of the shaft is formed with splines for meshingly engaging a slack adjuster of the vehicle brake system. A support plate formed with a generally D-shaped keyhole is mounted on the suspension beam, and is slip-fittingly engaged by the correspondingly shaped and sized inboard end of the tube. The weld-free keyhole connection of the tube and plate enables the plate to react rotation of the tube without the possibility of fatigue or failure of a weld. The tube-to-plate slip-fit connection further enables installation of the cam assembly on different types of axle/suspension systems, where the distance between the spider and suspension beam tube support points vary, as well as on same-type suspension assemblies without concern for differing distances between the tube support points caused by natural variations in manufacturing processes. The assembly also limits load-induced wear and contamination-induced wear to the shaft and the bushing of the assembly.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.