Land vehicles: bodies and tops – Bodies – Glare screen or visor
Reexamination Certificate
1998-02-26
2001-01-16
Pedder, Dennis H. (Department: 3612)
Land vehicles: bodies and tops
Bodies
Glare screen or visor
Reexamination Certificate
active
06174019
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to visors for vehicles and particularly to a visor which can slide along an elongated pivot rod and having a control which is extruded within a support sleeve.
Visors typically include a visor panel mounted to a pivot rod assembly allowing the visor to move from a raised stored position against the vehicle headliner to a lowered use position adjacent the windshield. Typically, the pivot rod assembly allows the visor to also move to a side window position to block incident sunlight from the side. Several such visor systems employ mechanisms to allow the visor to slide along an elongated pivot rod such that, when the visor is in a lowered use position, the visor can slide along the pivot rod to allow adjustment of the visor to block incident light. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,925,233; 4,998,765; 5,409,285; 5,645,308; and 5,653,490 are representative of such sliding visor assemblies.
In order to hold a visor in a raised stored position and control its position in selected lowered use positions, conventional visor assemblies typically utilize an internal torque control which provides an interface between the visor body and the visor pivot rod to provide not only a snap-up locking control for the visor against the vehicle headliner when stored but also a predetermined rotational holding torque allowing the visor to be moved to selected lowered use positions. When it is desired to provide a visor which slides along the pivot rod, the conventional torque control typically will not allow the sliding motion of the visor and either a separate mechanism is necessary to provide the desired sliding action and yet allow operation of the conventional torque control or an entirely different control mechanism is necessary. Although the sliding visors noted above provide the desired sliding action and snap-up and rotational control of visors, there remains a need for a relatively inexpensive small and lightweight system which is reliable and provides the desired sliding and rotational torque control for a visor assembly.
SUMMARY OF THE PRESENT INVENTION
The visor system of the present invention provides a unique sliding assembly for a slidable visor by providing a sleeve which is concentrically positioned around a visor pivot rod and a polymeric slide extruded in situ onto the pivot rod in the sleeve. The slide extends along at least a portion of the sleeve to provide a lubricous polymeric sliding interface between a visor mounted to the sleeve and the pivot rod mounted to a vehicle. The sleeve is mounted to a visor body with torque control allowing the rotation of the visor body with respect to the sleeve. In a preferred embodiment of the invention, the sleeve is keyed to prevent rotation of the slide and pivot rod with respect to the sleeve, and the visor body includes stops for limiting the motion of the visor body and sleeve with respect to the pivot rod. By injection molding the slide directly within the sleeve surrounding the pivot rod, an integral structure with the desired sliding friction and tolerance control is assured in a relatively inexpensive construction which is durable, lightweight and relatively inexpensive to manufacture.
These and other features, objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent upon reading the following description thereof together with reference to the accompanying drawings.
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Collet Corbin L.
Maurer John P.
Price James B.
Pedder Dennis H.
Price Heneveld Cooper DeWitt & Litton
Prince Corporation
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