Seal for a joint or juncture – Seal between relatively movable parts – Close proximity seal
Reexamination Certificate
1999-06-28
2001-11-06
Knight, Anthony (Department: 3626)
Seal for a joint or juncture
Seal between relatively movable parts
Close proximity seal
C277S424000, C277S562000, C464S133000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06311985
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
a) Field of the Invention
This invention pertains to improvements in shaft seals and particularly to an arrangement that is adapted for use with a pair of relatively rotatable parts to prevent the ingress of dust dirt and other foreign matter and the egress of fluid from within the area confined by the rotatable parts.
b) Description of Related Art
In seal applications particularly in the automotive and heavy-equipment fields where the operating environment contains a high concentration of foreign abrasive matter such as dust dirt and the like, it is advantageous to provide a secondary or dust excluding element to protect the primary sealing element. Seal failure is often due to abrasion by dust and dirt entering the seal and causing the seal to wear away.
During normal operation of a drive axle and yoke arrangement, a seal prevents oil from is escaping the transmission and keeps dirt, water or other foreign material from entering the transmission. Conventional drive axle yokes systems use a slinger arrangement to improve the cleanliness and life of the seal, and these drive axle yokes use a slinger that is pressed onto a diameter of the yoke, and often tack welded in place. Such slingers are used to keep debris away from the oil seal areas. Typically, the slinger is stamped of thin gage material.
There exists a need however for an effective and economical yoke and slinger design having reduced costs and manufacturing time, without sacrificing the systems ability to keep the oil seal areas free of debris.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present application proposes a unique solution providing an integral yoke and slinger arrangement machined from the same forging. The integral yoke/slinger assembly may be used in place of the current two-piece design.
This invention provides a new and improved shaft seal particularly adapted for use in yoke and flange arrangement exposed to a heavy concentration of air entrained foreign material. It is an object of this invention to provide a new and improved shaft sealing arrangement which due to its unique design provides a more efficient and economical method for manufacturing and assembling a yoke, slinger and seal arrangement for a drive axle system.
Additional objects other than those specifically enumerated will become apparent in the course of the following description of some preferred embodiments while other modifications will be clearly apparent to one of skill in the art who reads the description and studies the drawings.
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Chamberlin Michael Anthony
Kwasniewski Dale Lee
McKeeby Steven Daniel
Knight Anthony
Liniak Berenato Longacre & White
Peavey Enoch E.
Spricer Technologies, Inc.
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