The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jan. 03, 1989
Filed:
Feb. 29, 1988
Daniel F McCormick, Oshkosh, WI (US);
Brunswick Corporation, Skokie, IL (US);
Abstract
A marine drive unit (1) includes a lower gear case (8) forming a torpedo housing (9). A pair of coaxial propeller shafts (21, 25) are rotatably mounted in the housing and carry a pair of propellers (10, 11) thereon. The propeller shafts are driven by a pair of opposed driving gears (16, 24) suitably connected through a generally vertical main drive shaft (14) to a marine engine (4) and mounted on the horizontal drive axis (17). A pair of thrust bearings (44, 45) adapted to carry forward thrust loads are respectively disposed adjacent the facing portions of the opposed driving gears, with the pair being separated by a spacer (46) tightly confined therebetween. The spacer is locked against rotation but is freely floatable in an axial direction, and transfers the forward thrust load from one bearing to the other, so that the load is ultimately transferred from the outer propeller shaft (25) to the inner central shaft (21). The result is to reduce the rotational speed of each thrust bearing, in this instance by half.