Gear-shifting jaw clutch for speed-changing vehicular transmission

Abstract

Two gears idling on a shaft can be selectively coupled therewith by an interposed jaw clutch including a central gear fixed to the shaft and a surrounding ring gear axially slidable thereon for engagement with jaw teeth on either of the two flanking idler gears. Two blocking rings on opposite sides of the central gear are entrained thereby for joint rotation with freedom of limited relative angular displacement by frictional contact with the adjoining idler gears between two extreme relative position in which these rings prevent the shifting of the ring gear into engagement with the jaw teeth of the corresponding idler gear; such engagement is possible only in an intermediate angular position of the respective blocking ring in which several stop teeth on the blocking ring register with matching peripheral indentations on the ring gear. The ring gear has several angularly equispaced inner peripheral recesses accommodating radially slidable keys of which at least one coacts on standstill and at low shaft speeds with respective pairs of bosses on either blocking ring to move the latter into its nonblocking position upon an axial sliding of the ring gear toward it, these keys being centrifugally displaced outwardly at higher shaft speeds so as to be ineffectual.