DRIVE MECHANISM FOR SELECTIVELY OPENING AND CLOSING A CLOSURE PANEL MANUALLY OR AUTOMATICALLY.

摘要

A drive mechanism assembly (14) for enabling driving and manual movement of a sliding side door (12). The assembly (14) has a track assembly (16) mounted to a vehicle body (10) at a predetermined height and a drive mechanism (18) mounted to the sliding side door (12) so as to be proximate to a door latching mechanism (19). The drive mechanism (18) has an input drive motor (22) driving an output gear assembly (24) engaging the track assembly (16) and a transmission gear assembly (23) with a sliding gear (50) which selectively couples the input drive motor (22) and an input gear assembly (23) to the output gear assembly (24) between an engaged position for driving movement or disengaged position for manual movement of the sliding side door (12). In this way, the slide ride door (12) may be moved manually between open and closed positions without having to overcome the effort required of rotating the drive motor (22).