Automotive Products, Inc.

Automotive Products Company

David A Davies

Dennis Sydney Johnson

A friction clutch driven plate for motor vehicles is of the kind in which a friction facing carrier assembly is mounted for limited rotation relative to a hub, such limited rotation being controlled by damping springs and a friction damper. Centrifugal control of the friction damper is by a pendulum device in the form of eccentric collars pivoting on stop pins and engaging apertures in an intermediate plate frictionally engaged with the hub. At low rotational speeds the stop pins can move within the collars which can also tilt to allow limited relative rotation between the carrier assembly and the hub with low friction damping. At higher speeds the collars are effectively locked in place to give high friction damping. By suitable arrangement of windows for the damping springs this also has the effect of reducing relative rotation controlled by a low rate spring only required to damp transmission noise during engine idling.

Friction clutch driven plate

A clutch driven plate for releasable clamped engagement between opposed driving surfaces, usually an engine flywheel and a clutch cover pressure plate, is particularly suitable for a motor vehicle and includes the usual hub, friction facing carrier and annular co-axial friction facings. The friction facings are for a major part of both radially co-extensive, but the facing on one side of the carrier is of greater superficial area than the facing on the opposite side. This may be most simply achieved by making one facing of greater radial width than the other facing.

Friction clutch driven plates

A clutch driven plate having an annular component which carries the friction facings and which is mounted for limited rotary movement on a hub so that it extends between a pair of radially extending discs which are fixed to the hub. One or both discs have integral bent-over tongues which project into corresponding circumferentially extending slots in the annular component and serve as stops which limit the rotary movement of the annular component relative to the hub. Also at least one of the discs is fixed in relation to the hub by engagement in grooves formed in the hub of serrations formed in its inner peripheral edge or vice versa. The serrations may be formed of a material which is harder than that in which the grooves are formed, the grooves being cut by the serrations during assembly of the disc onto the hub. Alternatively both the serrations and the grooves may be preformed and the serrations may be engaged within the grooves with an interference fit.

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Leamington Spa, United Kingdom

David A Davies