VEHICLE HEIGHT CONTROL DEVICE FOR MOTORCYCLE

摘要

A damper is provided with a vehicle height control unit including: a jack housing of a hydraulic jack provided at an upper end portion of a vehicle body side tube such that a plunger which defines a jack chamber is fitted on the jack housing so as to be movable up and down; a suspension spring provided between the plunger and a wheel side tube; and a pump housing provided in an upper end portion of a damper cylinder and forming a pump chamber in a hydraulic pump such that a pump pipe forming a part of a piston rod and communicating with an oil chamber in the damper cylinder is slidably inserted into the pump chamber.

主权项

1. A vehicle height control device for a motorcycle with a pair of dampers disposed on laterally opposite sides of a vehicle body, the vehicle height control device comprising:
a vehicle height control unit provided in at least one of the left and right dampers, wherein the damper provided with the vehicle height control unit comprises: a wheel side tube; a vehicle body side tube slidably engaged with the wheel side tube; a damper cylinder provided upright in an inner bottom portion of the wheel side tube; an oil chamber; a piston rod hanging from an upper end portion of the vehicle body side tube and inserted into the oil chamber in the damper cylinder; a piston provided at a leading end portion of the piston rod, the oil chamber being partitioned by the piston, into an upper oil chamber above the piston and a lower oil chamber below the piston; and an oil reservoir chamber defined outside the damper cylinder and spanning to an upper portion of the vehicle body side tube, the oil reservoir chamber having an upper portion that forms an air chamber, and wherein the vehicle height control unit comprises: a hydraulic jack including a jack housing and a plunger, the jack housing being provided at an upper end portion of the vehicle body side tube such that the plunger defining a jack chamber of the hydraulic jack is fitted on the jack housing so as to be movable up and down; a suspension spring provided between the plunger of the hydraulic jack and the wheel side tube; a hydraulic pump including a pump housing and a pump pipe, the pump housing being provided in an upper end portion of the damper cylinder and forming a pump chamber of a hydraulic pump such that the pump pipe forming a part of the piston rod and communicating with the oil chamber in the damper cylinder is slidably inserted into the pump chamber in the pump housing; a selector valve controlling a vehicle height by adjustment of an amount of hydraulic oil fed to the jack chamber in the hydraulic jack by the hydraulic pump that performs a pumping operation in conjunction with extending and contracting motion of the pump pipe with respect to the pump housing; and a control unit that opens or closes the selector valve in a controllable manner.