Eccentric adjustment for vehicle axle suspensions

摘要

The background disclosure is of a somewhat typical tandem-axle vehicle suspension, especially for motor trucks, made up of a pair of spring-supported, fore-and-aft walking beams and a pair of transverse rear axles. The improvement resides in structure interconnecting the axle housing and walking beams to provide for fore-and-aft adjustment of the axle housing relative to each other and to the walking beams so as to assure or at least approach parallelism of the axle housing with respect to each other and perpendicularity thereof to the vehicle fore-and-aft centerline. Each end of each walking beam is connected to its associated axle housing portion by a pair of relatively angularly cooperative members of circular configuration but having eccentric axes so that when one member is turned relative to the other, the fore-and-aft relationship of the adjusted axle housing changes. The improved interconnecting structure ties in closely with existing parts, at least in some known designs of typical suspensions, mainly using rubber bushings in the interconnections so that each end of an axle housing may be adjusted relative to the other without imposing undue stresses.