Freewheel clutch with a cage for receiving and retaining the gripping elements

摘要

A freewheel clutch includes a ladder-like guide band, and a cage for receiving and retaining a group of wedging gripping members in an annular space between a pair of concentric races, preferably the cage is formed from a flexible flat strip having windows defined therein including supports and resilient biasing lugs formed by the edges of the windows and having radially extending supports all unitary with the strip, opposite end windows being over-lappable and interlockable with each other to form an annular cage, the guide band may be formed of a rubber-like material or a combination of a molded material and wire, or by a continuously coiled wire defining a group of adjacent coils alternately joined by their ends forming spacers for the gripper elements.