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:
Aug. 20, 1991
Filed:
Mar. 08, 1990
Arthur Koerner, Rochester, MI (US);
Other;
Abstract
Toe adjustment apparatus for an alignment machine includes wheel position and body height sensors for providing input to a controller, and a power wrench carried by an adjustment mechanism for engaging and adjusting the vehicle tie rod under control of the controller. Power operated multi-axis actuators approximately align and couple the wrench head with the tie rod and multi-axis passive adjustments perfect registration of the head on the tie rod. The wrench head includes an open end socket configured to mate with a jam nut at one end and a tie rod hex portion at the other end so that both elements are selectively engaged by lateral shifting along the rod from one to the other for turning the jam nut and the rod as required for proper toe set. An encoder on the wrench produces pulses representing rotation increments and thus wheel adjustment increments. A method of correcting toe angle comprises measuring the toe angle and determining the error, calculating the rotation target value require to correct the error, adjusting the tie rod with the wrench and counting the encoder pulses, and comparing the counted pulses with the target value to determine when to stop adjustment.