Rack-and-pinion steering gear
AssigneeZF Friedrichshafen AG
InventorRudolf Sommer
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The rack-and-pinion steering gear, in particular for controlling motor vehicles, in order to compensate for the deviations in planarity between the thrust piece and the set screw, has a compensating disk acted upon by a spring on one side; the top side of the compensating disk is embodied spherically and engages the inside of a recess, adapted to it, of the thrust piece, and its underside is partly curved, so that the requisite variation in spacing between the thrust piece and the set screw that is required to compensate for toothing deviations is constantly spanned while maintaining a contact.
Claims18
A rack-and-pinion steering gear comprising:
- a housing in which a rack and pinion of the steering gear are located;
- a thrust piece in the housing which bears forwardly against the rack, the thrust piece including a rearward ball socket;
- a set screw provided in the housing adjacent to the thrust piece;
- a central compression spring provided between the set screw and the thrust piece which urges the thrust piece and hence the rack forwardly towards the pinion;
- a compensating disk provided between the set screw and the thrust piece and having a forward ball portion which engages the ball socket of the thrust piece;
- an eccentric bore provided on one of a rearward side of the compensating disk toward the set screw or a forward side of the set screw toward the compensating disk;
- and
- an eccentric spring disposed in the eccentric bore and having opposite ends which respectively engage the compensating disk and the set screw.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.