Gulf & Western Manufacturing Company

Gulf + Western Industries

Daniel J Sellmeyer

In a somewhat standard system for releasing a parking brake of a wheeled motor vehicle of the type including a mechanical locking panel which coacts with a toothed sector for holding the parking brakes in the set condition, there is provided an improvement for automatically releasing the pawl from the sector when the transmission control mechanism of the vehicle is shifted from park or neutral into a driving condition. The improved device includes an elongated flexible element, such as a cable, extending from the brake releasing mechanism to the transmission control mechanism and a bell crank at the transmission control mechanism which coacts with a movable cam sector to effect the automatic release by pulling the flexible element.

System for automatically releasing parking brakes

A device for pulling upon a parking brake actuating cable in response to movement of a pedal actuated lever in a selected path between a brake release first position and a brake engaging second position wherein the device comprises a motion translating element having first and second mechanical couplings spaced from each other for securing to the lever and to the actuation cable, respectively, mechanism for moving the first mechanical coupling in a selected first path by the pedal lever and a cam coacting with the motion translating element for causing the second mechanical coupling to move in a selected second path controlled jointly by movement of the first coupling and the cam. In this device, the motion translating element is a link and the cam includes a curvilinear surface on the link and a fixed rotary pin against which the cam surface is biased by the pulling force of the cable against the link so that the fulcrum formed by the pin and surface progressively changes as the pedal lever is depressed.

Growing community of inventors

Royal Oak, MI, United States of America

Daniel J Sellmeyer