American Axle & Manufacturing, Inc.

Ford Global Technolgoies, LLC

Kenneth G Kraft

Jeffrey Lee Kincaid

Siraj Siddiqui

Cyrille Goldstein

William David Guarino

Manoj Venkatesh Bhandiwad

Brian Allen Mattila

Michael Coury

Peter Alexander Szpara

Thomas J Miller

A motor for an electric vehicle includes a motor housing for receiving a stator. A plurality of caps each have an outer rim and a washer portion defining a bolt receiving opening. The outer rim of each of the caps is press-fit into the receptacles in the motor housing. The caps are each attached to the stator by one of the bolts. The heads of the bolts clamp the cap to the stator to retain one end of the stator. The outer rim holds the cap in the motor housing while the washer portion flexes axially in response to thermal expansion and contraction of the motor housing. A method is disclosed for assembling the stator into the motor housing.

Stator free end retainer

A low lash idler arm assembly includes upper and lower bushings which are provided for supporting a hub of an idler arm on a support member. The assembly uses the engagement of a flange nut onto the support member to axially position the bushings in their final position.

Low lash idler arm assembly

A preloaded pivot joint has a threaded ball seat that is screwed into an open end of the joint housing to adjust the axial load on the ball stud and consequent torque characteristics. The adjusted position of the ball seat is then maintained by swaging the joint housing inwardly to engage a hexagonal portion of the ball seat that is used to screw the ball seat into the housing.

Adjustable torque pivot joint

A pitman arm incorporates a preloaded pivot joint that has a stud that rotates and angulates. The preloaded pivot joint is designed so that different internal components transfer the respective lateral loads, axial compression loads and angulation loads of the stud.

Preloaded pivot joint

Growing community of inventors

Warren, MI, United States of America

Kenneth G Kraft