Towmotor Corporation

John T Crawford

Walter M Shaffer

A steering axle for use in a vehicle such as an industrial truck or the like comprises a center beam member having spindles mounted for pivotal movement at each end thereof for rotatably supporting a pair of wheels. A double-acting motor is secured to the axle between the spindles and is connected by steering links to the spindles. The hydraulic motor comprises a double-acting piston having its rods extending outward and connected at their ends to the axle beam member for stationary mounting of the piston. A cylinder is reciprocally mounted on the piston and rods and is connected at each end by means of a pair of links to a pair of steering arms for each of the spindles. The geometric relationship of the steering motor and the steering arms are such that the angles between the axis of the cylinder and the links connected to the steering arms will be equal when the spindles are such that wheels mounted thereon would be straight ahead or in the fully cramped position. This arrangement provides a compact arrangement having minimum stress on the steering components.

Steering axle

A hood of a vehicle has an aligning assembly for returning a pivotal hood to a preselected position over a portion of the vehicle.

Vehicle hood assembly

An attachment for use on a fork lift truck includes a base portion, and stabilizer bars movable relative thereto, laterally of the truck. The attachment also includes a platform movable relative to the base means laterally of the truck, and actuating means, including pulley and cable means, are utilized to initially move the stabilizer bars laterally of the truck, for engagement with a storage rack for stabilizing the fork lift truck. The platform is then shifted laterally to shift the load thereon. When this operation is completed, the platform is initially retracted, with the stabilizer bars in their outward or extended positions, and then the stabilizer bars themselves are retracted.

Side handling attachment

An axle beam has a pair of side plates individually secured to the ends of a pair of vertically spaced upper and lower plates and a vertically disposed plate secured to the forward edges of the upper and lower plate. A pair of wheel drive gears are individually journalled on a pair of spindles individually secured to the outer surfaces of the side plates with the spindles having a horizontal axis extending therethrough. A differential disposed within the axle beam is secured to one of the plates and has a pair of jackshafts extending outwardly from its opposite sides. Each jackshaft extends through an aperture formed in the side plate and has a gear formed on its distal end mating with the respective wheel drive gear. The jackshafts and apertures are radially offset from the horizontal axis a predetermined distance as determined by the mating relation between the gears such that said apertures are located in one of a plurality of positions which are disposed on a pair of diametrically opposite arcs of a circle having the horizontal axis of the spindle as its center and the predetermined distance as its radius, with one of the arcs being disposed forwardly of the horizontal axis.

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Lyndhurst, OH, United States of America

John T Crawford