Valve actuating system for reciprocating machine

Abstract

A number of cylinder head arrangements that provide low cost and easy assembly of their various components with minimum labor and reduced necessity for line boring to reduce both manufacturing and assembly operation without adversely affecting performance.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0001] This invention relates to reciprocating machines such as internal combustion engines or compressors of the type having a cylinder block having one or more cylinder bores that reciprocally support a piston or pistons that are connected a crankshaft at one end. The opposite end of these cylinder bores is closed by a cylinder head affixed to the cylinder block in a suitable manner. The flow into and out of the cylinder bores is controlled by valves reciprocally mounted in the cylinder head and operated by one or more camshafts journalled therein. Frequently the valves are operated from cams on the camshaft through pivotally supported rocker arms. [0002] Although this arrangement is generally effective, a substantial number of machining and assembly steps are required to complete the assembly. This adds to the cost and can, if not closely controlled, present alignment problems that can introduce inaccuracies and less than desirable operation. [0003] As...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

This invention is a valve actuating mechanism for a reciprocating machine that is easy to make and assemble. It includes a cam shaft carrier that holds a cam shaft, a rocker shaft, and a rocker arm. The cam shaft carrier has a hole for the rocker shaft, which is parallel to the cam shaft. The rocker arm is connected to the rocker shaft and has a surface that interacts with a cam lobe on the cam shaft. This mechanism is simple and cost-effective, making it ideal for use in small machines.

Problems solved by technology

Although this arrangement is generally effective, a substantial number of machining and assembly steps are required to complete the assembly.

This adds to the cost and can, if not closely controlled, present alignment problems that can introduce inaccuracies and less than desirable operation.

As a further disadvantage to this type of construction, to secure the positional accuracy of the rocker shaft support section formed on the lower cam carrier, line boring is necessary after the lower cam carriers are mounted independently on each cylinder head.

Therefore, the scale of machining facilities for such line boring become larger.

In addition, since the rigidity of hole machining tools needs to be secured to secure the machining accuracy, size reduction of the tool diameter is difficult.

Therefore, weight saving and size reduction of the rocker shaft are difficult and in turn, weight saving and size reduction of the rocker arm are also difficult.

Therefore, when the cam carriers are assembled to the cylinder head, they need to be assembled in succession while rocker arms are fitted on the rocker shafts, causing complicated assembly work.

Therefore the support section for each of the rocker shafts needs to be separately machined for each cam carrier, making positional accuracy is difficult to obtain.

Images