Method of making an outer lever of a switchable finger lever

A method of making an outer lever of a finger lever that can be switched to different lifts for at least one gas exchange valve, said outer lever comprising two substantially parallel arms whose ends are connected by crossbars so that a rectangular or O-like aperture for an inner lever that is capable of pivoting relative to the outer lever is formed, a running contact surface for a high-lift cam being arranged on an upper side of each arm said method of comprising the following work steps to which further intermediate steps may be added:

• a) deep drawing a cup-shaped base body our of a metal sheet or a sheet metal strip such that at least one drawing die is applied to the metal sheet or the sheet metal strip from an underside of the arms to be formed and a substantial height of the arms and the crossbars in the cup-shaped base body is produced, so that, as viewed in cross-section, an inverse U-shaped profile is formed,
• b) reducing a radius in the edge region between a bottom of the cup-shaped base body and outer sides of the arms by shaping, typically stamping or extrusion at least in the region of the running contact surfaces to be subsequently formed, and
• c) punching out the bottom of the cup-shaped base body except for at least the two opposing running contact surfaces, and
• wherein simultaneously with, or directly or indirectly after step a), a further step is carried out in which the drawing die or at least one further drawing die or a stamping die is applied to the bottom in deep drawing direction in a vicinity of the end, so that, one of a laterally open or closed lug-like cavity is formed, and the material of the cavity is also punched out in step c) except for an extension starting from the crossbar said one of the end, and
• wherein a finger pointing in a longitudinal direction of the lever is punched out of the bottom simultaneously with the running contact surfaces, which finger is bent away from the aperture in a consequent step so as to project upwards from the crossbar.