Honda Giken Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha

Honda Motor Co., Ltd.

Toyoshi Yasuda

Makoto Yazaki

Shinichi Ide

Hideaki Takada

Noboru Ashikawa

Hiroshi Watabe

Masami Takano

Akihito Ohhashi

Hiroshi Mizuguchi

Taiichi Otobe

Yoshinori Masubuchi

Yoshiyuki Matsuda

Masayuki Ohsumi

Mitsuaki Kubota

Hiroyuki Shimada

Nobuo Haga

Bunsho Yaguchi

Masahiro Akioka

Shigeo Terada

An outboard motor having an intake passage unit for introducing air into an engine compartment is provided. The intake passage unit has two intake passage portions disposed at the left and the right of an engine, extending vertically, to reduce the fore-and-aft length of an engine cover. The left and right intake passage portions communicate at their upper portions with air introduction openings formed in the engine cover.

Outboard motor

An outboard motor has an under cover forming a lower part of an engine room in which an engine is installed. The under cover has a pair of right and left cover members detachably connected together along opposing vertical edges thereof; an opening formed in at least one of the cover members for allowing access to the engine. The opening is vertically spaced from an upper edge of the under cover and extends contiguously from the vertical edge of the at least one cover member. A lid made of elastic material is attached to an outer surface of the under cover so as to close the opening of the under cover, the lid being elastically deformable to open and close the opening.

In a shift mechanism for an outboard motor mounted on a stern of a boat and having an internal combustion engine and a propeller connected by a propeller shaft to the engine to propel the boat, a vertical shaft connected to the engine and transmitting an output of the engine to the propeller shaft is divided into two shaft halves and an electromagnetic clutch is provided to connect/disconnect the shaft halves. An electronic controller is provided to operate the electromagnetic clutch to disconnect the vertical shaft halves until one of the forward and reverse gears corresponding to the instruction to shift has been engaged with the propeller shaft, and then operate it to connect the shaft halves after the one of the forward gear and the reverse gear has been engaged with the propeller shaft. Alternatively, two electromagnetic clutches are provided to engage the forward or reverse gear with the propeller shaft, and the controller controls operation of the electromagnetic clutches in response to the instruction to shift such that corresponding one of the forward and reverse gears is engaged with the propeller shaft. With this, it becomes possible to decrease an impact occurring at the beginning of shift, thereby enabling to prevent the outboard motor from vibrating, while enabling to improve the operation feeling and facilitate maintenance, and to avoid a problem regarding space utilization.

Outboard motor shift mechanism

An outboard motor has an engine, a propeller drivable by the engine, and a drive shaft for transmitting a driving force from the engine to the propeller. A casing assembly supports the engine and rotatably supports and accommodates the drive shaft. A cover structure defines at least part of an engine space accommodating therein the engine. The cover structure has a resin cover body comprised of at least first and second cover members detachably connected to one another, and a frame assembly integrally connected to an inner surface of the first cover member for reinforcement threof. The first cover member has an opened flange receiving a seal of the second cover member. The frame assembly extends along a contour of the opened flange.

Fixedly joining sections are provided on opposed joining edges of left and right undercover members defining part of an engine space of an outboard engine unit. The opposed joining edges are abutted against each other with the joining sections of the left and right undercover members overlapped in face-to-face relation with each other in a front-and-rear direction of the outboard engine unit. Fasteners, such as bolts, fasten together the overlapped joining sections in the front-and-rear direction, to thereby join together the left and right undercover members. The joining sections may be provided on frame members integrally secured to the respective inner side surfaces of resin-made outer wall sections of the left and right undercover members.

Cover joining structure for outboard engine unit

In an outboard motor mounted on a stern of a boat and having an internal combustion engine at its upper portion and a propeller at its lower portion that is powered by the engine to propel the boat, and having a shift mechanism comprising a clutch installed in the outboard motor to be engaged from with a forward gear that causes the boat to be propelled in a forward direction or a reverse gear that causes the boat to be propelled in a reverse direction, a shift rod movably installed in the outboard motor, and a shift slider connected to the shift rod to slide to a position at which the clutch is engaged with the forward gear or a position at which the clutch is engaged with the reverse gear, an actuator such as an electric motor is installed in the outboard motor to move the shift rod. The arrangement can mitigate the load than that under manual operation and offer improved operation feel, without leading to an increase in number of components or weight, and in addition, the required installation space at the hull is no longer needed.

Shift mechanism for outboard motor

An electronically controlled transmission in which a shift actuator for driving a sleeve of a roller synchro mechanism and a throttle actuator for an engine are electronically controlled. The shift actuator is comprised of a drum type actuator of a simple structure comprising a shift drum and a shift fork. The use of the roller synchro mechanism ensures that only a small driving force for the shift drum is required, which makes it possible to provide a reduction in size of the shift actuator. In addition, a shift lever for operating a shift switch for producing the shifting instruction signal is mounted on either left or right side of the steering wheel. This ensures that the shifting-up and shifting-down signals can be produced by one of the driver's hands, leading to an improvement in operability of the shift lever.

Electronically controlled transmission and steering wheel located shift

A vehicle transmission of the type having a main shaft and a parallel counter shaft with a plurality of selectable gear trains therebetween. The axis of the engine crankshaft is disposed perpendicular to intermediate portions of the main shaft and the counter shaft, with the low speed gear trains and high speed gear trains positioned on opposite lateral sides of the crankshaft. This results not only in a reduced size of the transmission in the axial direction of the crankshaft but also in a reduced lateral size of the transmission, as compared with a transmission in which the crankshaft is connected in series to the transmission main shaft. A synchro mechanism is mounted on the counter shaft and a shift drum for operating the synchro mechanism is positioned parallel to the counter shaft. This insures a space for disposition of the synchro mechanism between gears of the relatively large diameter gears on the counter shaft and ensures a smooth shifting operation, without an increase in the lateral size of the transmission due to the shift drum.

Growing community of inventors

Wako, Japan

Toyoshi Yasuda