JPS6218423B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (Field of Industrial Application) The present invention relates to a fuel tank cap used, for example, as a filler port of a fuel tank of an automobile or the like.

(Prior Art) In recent vehicles, the airtightness of the fuel system has been improved in order to prevent environmental pollution, and as a result, when the temperature rises, the internal pressure of the tank increases significantly due to vaporized fuel within the tank. Therefore, when the cap is removed from the filler neck during refueling, the internal pressure of the tank often causes the cap to be blown off, resulting in the fuel in the tank being blown out.

Therefore, in the conventional cap, the eighth
As shown in the figure, claws b and b are provided on the side of the cap body a, and the phases of the claws b and b are shifted by 90 degrees.
and provide claws g, g at positions below the claws b, b,
After inserting these claws g and g into the filler neck, 90
The cap f is attached by rotating the filler neck C, inserting the claws b, b, and further rotating the cap f to engage the claws b, b with the end surface e of the cam wall d provided on the filler neck c; As a result, even if one of the two-stage claws comes off, the other claw g disengages from the end surface e of the cam wall d, thereby preventing the cap from blowing off and the gasoline from blowing back as described above, which occur when the internal pressure of the tank is high. This is prevented because it is designed to prevent

However, in this two-stage cap, as shown in the figure, when the cap is opened, a large gap is created between the filler neck C and the cap when the claws b and b are uncoupled, making it difficult to prevent gasoline from blowing back. It lacked completeness.

Also, if you remove the cap slowly, there is no risk of the cap being blown off due to the action of the two-stage claw, but if you remove the cap too quickly, the two-stage claw will not work and the cap will not blow off. Sometimes it happens.

In order to solve this drawback, a screw-in type cap has recently been proposed (Japanese Patent Publication No. 52-33255), in which threads are cut into the filler neck and the cap, and the cap cannot be attached or detached without twisting it many times. In this cap, after the cap is released from the sealed state, the fit between the cap and the filler neck cannot be broken unless the cap is twisted several more times.During this time, the high pressure inside the tank gradually escapes from the gap between the screws. Therefore, the drawbacks of the two-stage cap described above do not occur.

Since it is impossible to seal the threaded part of this screw-in cap, it is sealed using an O-ring, and since it is usually made of synthetic resin, the O-ring and cap can be easily damaged by over-tightening. In order to prevent damage, as shown in FIG. 9, a ratchet member 31 is provided on the inner wall surface of the outer shell of the lid 30, and a claw 32 is provided on the upper side of the inner body to control the tightening torque. I have to.

(Problems to be Solved by the Invention) However, in this cap, since bending force is constantly acting on the synthetic resin claw, there is a problem with the durability of this claw. Since the shape is complex, complicated steps are required to mold it. Furthermore, since the pawl protrudes horizontally from the upper side of the main body and is received by the ratchet member provided on the inner wall surface of the outer shell, the diameter of the outer shell becomes unnaturally large. This may be inconvenient for caps used in confined spaces.

Therefore, in order to provide a cap that solves the above-mentioned drawbacks, the present applicant first applied for patent application No. 52-139866.
No. (Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 1983-74026), and patent application No. 1983-
No. 5175 (Special Publication No. 60-50665) is a cap consisting of a cap body that closes the filler neck, and a handle member that is a lid body that covers this cap body, and when the cap is attached, a ratchet mechanism operates. However, the patent application has been filed for a cap that is equipped with a rotation transmission member on which a clutch mechanism operates when the cap is removed. However, in this case, a spring member is required to constantly apply elastic contact pressure to the rotation transmission member, and the number of parts is increased. Furthermore, the ratchet mechanism and clutch mechanism are two parts that fit together to control torque using frictional force when the cap is attached, and when the cap is removed, the clutch action controls the handle member. and the cap body rotate together, so even when installing,
The same two parts operate even when removed;
Coupled with the fact that most of the rotation transmission members are made of synthetic resin, there remains some concern about wear during long-term use. Therefore, there has been a desire for a cap that is improved in these respects as well.

The present invention eliminates the problems of conventional caps, does not cause the cap to blow out or the fuel to suddenly blow out when the cap is detached, and furthermore, constant torque control is possible at all times, and furthermore, it has excellent durability. The purpose is to provide a cap that is advantageous in terms of space factor.

(Means for Solving the Problems) In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a cylindrical portion having a second male thread that engages with a second female thread provided on the filler neck, and a cylindrical portion at the upper end of the cylindrical portion. A cap body that closes the fillet neck of the fuel tank, and a handle member that covers the cap body and is rotatably mounted on the main body. and an elastic sealing material that is attached to a jaw portion of the cap body that is formed to protrude outward in the radial direction due to the expanded diameter, and seals between the fillet neck and the cap body, a threaded portion that allows the handle member to move up and down with respect to the cap body as the handle member rotates; and a threaded portion that engages the handle member and the cap body when the handle member is raised, and engages the handle member and the cap body when the handle member is lowered; A rotation transmitting mechanism is provided, the rotation transmission mechanism having an engaging portion provided at the abutting portion of the handle member and the cap main body, the screw portion being formed such that the handle member can be removed from the cap body. A first male thread provided on the outer circumferential surface of a cylindrical hanging piece that hangs concentrically corresponding to the inner circumferential surface of the cylindrical portion constituting the main body, and the first female thread provided on the inner circumferential surface of the cylindrical portion. The cylindrical hanging piece has a plurality of notches in its axial direction, and when the cap body is screwed into the filler neck and the rotational force of the handle member exceeds a certain value, the threaded portion at the threaded portion is formed. The threaded portion is characterized by having elasticity that allows one threaded portion to rotate over the other threaded portion.

(Function) By adopting this configuration, it is possible to control the torque so that no more than a predetermined torque is applied when tightening the cap, and when removing the cap, it is possible to completely prevent the cap from blowing off or sudden fuel from blowing out. is prevented. Furthermore, since the threaded part and the engaging part are separate parts, even when manufactured from synthetic resin, it has excellent durability and does not become unnecessarily large in terms of space factor.

(Example) Hereinafter, a fuel tank cap according to the present invention will be described.
An explanation will be given based on an embodiment shown in the drawings.

Figures 1 and 2 show a first embodiment of a cap A according to the present invention applied to a gasoline tank of a car. and,
A handle member 3 placed on the cap body 2, the cap body 2, and a filler neck 1.
and an O-ring 9 that seals between.

The cap body 2 has a second male screw 7 on the outer peripheral surface.
and a cylindrical portion 4 having a valve mechanism 5 therein.
and a projecting edge 20 integrally formed at the upper end of the cylindrical portion 4 with a diameter larger than the outer diameter of the cylindrical portion 4.

The male thread 7 is screwed into a second female thread 8 cut into the filler neck 1. This allows cap A to close filler neck 1.

As the valve mechanism 5, a negative pressure valve is usually used in a gasoline cap of a car, and eliminates negative pressure inside the tank due to fuel consumption. This negative pressure valve is
Although it is provided below the partition wall 25 formed inside the cylindrical portion 4, it is a well-known structure, so a detailed explanation will be omitted.

The cylindrical portion 4 has a first female thread 18 on its upper inner circumferential surface, into which a first male thread 17 of a handle member 3 to be described later is screwed. The first female thread 18 and the first male thread 17 constitute a threaded portion 11 that transmits the rotational force of the handle member 3 to the cap body 2.

The projecting edge portion 20 is formed by expanding the diameter of the cylindrical portion 4.
An annular jaw portion 20a formed to protrude outward in the radial direction, and an annular upper end tip portion 2 whose diameter expands further outward from the outer edge of the jaw portion 20a through a step.
It consists of 0b. An O-ring 9 is attached to the jaw portion 20a, and a sawtooth first tooth portion 24 as shown in FIGS. 4 and 6 is formed on the lower surface of the upper end portion 20b. And this tooth part 24
is adapted to mesh with a second toothed portion 23 of an inwardly protruding ring 22 formed on the handle member 3, which will be described later.

The cylindrical portion 4 and the protruding edge portion 20 are integrally molded from synthetic resin using injection molding or the like.

On the other hand, as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, the handle member 3 includes a disc-shaped top plate 1 that covers the cap body 2.
3, an annular skirt portion 21 that hangs downward from its outer peripheral edge and wraps around the protruding edge portion 20 of the cap body 2, and a hollow flat skirt portion 21 that is formed to bulge out on the upper surface of the top plate 13. A rotating handle 10 and a cylindrical hanging piece 16 hanging from the lower surface 14 of the top plate 13 in correspondence with the upper inner circumferential surface of the cap body 2.
and an inwardly protruding ring 22 formed to protrude from the inner periphery of the edge of the skirt portion 21 to below the protruding edge portion 20 of the cap body 2.

Further, the cylindrical hanging piece 16 has a first male thread 17 carved on its outer peripheral surface to be screwed into the first female thread 18 of the cap body 2, and has a plurality of notches 19 in the axial direction thereof. There is.

Further, the inwardly protruding ring 22 has a sawtooth second toothed portion 23 formed on its upper surface as shown in FIGS. It is designed to mesh with a first tooth portion 24 formed on the upper end protrusion 20b of No. 2. The second tooth portion 23 and the first tooth portion 24 constitute the meshing portion 12.

Note that the handle member 3 is integrally molded from synthetic resin, and in particular, the top plate 13 and the skirt portion 2 are integrally molded.
1, the handle 10 and the cylindrical hanging piece 16 are simultaneously integrally molded by injection molding, etc., and the inward protruding ring 22 is attached to the skirt portion 21 by ultrasonic welding or adhesive after the cap body 2 is assembled. It is fixed to the handle member 3 by a fixing method such as adhesive.

In the cap of the present invention, the cap main body 2 and the handle member 3 described above are assembled by screwing the first male thread 17 of the handle member 3 into the first female thread 18 of the cap main body 2, and in this state, the handle member The inward protruding ring 22 of No. 3 is fixed and the O-ring 9 is attached to complete the process.

Note that when the threads of the first male thread 17 and the first female thread 18 are completely screwed together, the meshing portion 12
The first tooth portion 23 and the second tooth portion 24 are opposed to each other with a slight gap between them without meshing with each other.

The rotation transmission mechanism for controlling the tightening torque of the cap A of the present invention and for making it freely attachable to and detachable from the filler neck includes the handle member 3.
When the handle member 3 is raised by the threaded portion 11 formed by the first male thread 17 provided on the cylindrical hanging piece 16 having a notch 19 and the first female thread 8 of the cap body 2; ,
The handle member 3 and the cap body 2 are engaged with each other,
This toothing is formed so that it comes out of alignment when it descends.
It includes an inwardly protruding ring 22 of the handle member 3 and a meshing part 12 consisting of a second tooth part 23 and a first tooth part 24 formed on the upper end protrusion 20b of the cap body 2, respectively. Due to the elasticity provided in the notch 19 of the cylindrical hanging piece 16 of the cap, when a torque exceeding a predetermined value is applied when tightening the cap,
The thread of the first male screw 17 now rotates over the thread of the first female screw 8, and when the cap is removed, the rotation of the handle member 3 is directly caused by the rotation of the cap body 2 due to the meshing portion 12. Thus, the cap A can be smoothly removed from the filler neck 1.

As mentioned above, the cap body 2 and the handle member 3
Place cap A, which has been completed by assembling and installing an O-ring, on filler neck 1.
When the handle 10 of the handle member 3 is rotated clockwise, this rotational force is applied to the first male thread 1 of the cylindrical hanging piece 16.
7 and the first female thread 18 of the cap body 2 to the cap body 2, and the second male thread 7 of the cap body 2 is connected to the filler neck 1.
It is screwed into the second female thread 8 of.

The handle 10 is attached to the O-ring 9 of the cap body 2.
When the handle member 3 rotates until it comes into contact with the filler neck 1 and further rotates after this contact, the handle member 3
While the cylindrical hanging piece 16 resists the elasticity imparted by the notch 19, the cap A is
The O-ring 9 is screwed into the filler neck 1 while being compressed and deformed. Due to this compression of the O-ring 9, the cap A reliably seals the filler net 1. After the O-ring 9 hermetically seals the filler neck 1, the handle 1 is
0, the tightening torque due to this rotation reaches a certain value, and the first male thread 17 of the cylindrical hanging piece 16 moves beyond the thread of the first female thread 18 of the cap body 2. . That is, this cylindrical hanging piece 16 is made of synthetic resin and has a notch 19.
Because of this, it has elasticity, and if a torque exceeding a predetermined value is applied, the threaded state will be released due to elastic deformation due to the notch 19, and the first male thread 1 will be unthreaded.
7 may exceed the thread of the first female thread 18. In this case, the rotation transmission mechanism 6 makes a clicking sound and rotates idly, allowing the operator to know that the tightening force of the cap A has reached a certain value.

When the tank becomes negative pressure due to the use of fuel after the cap installation is completed, the negative pressure is eliminated by the action of the negative pressure valve.

Furthermore, if the cap A is equipped with the negative pressure valve 5 described above, the internal pressure of the tank may become high due to a rise in outside air temperature, etc., but if the cap is removed in this state, the high pressure will tend to escape all at once. With conventional caps, there was a risk of the cap flying off and the fuel blowing back, but in the present invention, the above-mentioned dangers can be avoided by simply rotating the handle member 3 counterclockwise.

That is, when removing the cap A, when the handle member 3 is rotated, this rotation causes the handle member 3 to rise from the cap body 2, and as a result of this rise, the engaging portions 12 are immediately engaged.
The handle member 3 and the cap body 2 become one body and are unscrewed from the filler neck 1. Since the cap A and the filler neck 1 are screwed together by a plurality of screw threads,
After the seal of the O-ring 9 is released, the cap A cannot be removed from the filler neck 1 unless it is rotated several more times.
The high pressure gradually escapes from the threaded gap between the filler neck 1 and the filler neck 1, and the above-mentioned drawbacks can be avoided.

FIG. 7 shows a second embodiment of the present invention,
The difference from the first embodiment is that the meshing portion 12 is provided inside the cylindrical portion 4 of the cap body 2.

That is, a mating cylinder 26 having a flange-like protruding edge 27 at the upper end is provided on the partition wall 25 of the cylindrical part 4, and a mating cylinder 26 is provided on the lower end edge of the cylindrical hanging piece 16 of the handle member 3 so as to extend inwardly. A protruding ring 22 is provided in a protruding manner, and the lower surface of the protruding edge portion 20 and the upper surface of the inwardly protruding ring 22 are provided with second tooth portions 23 similar to those described above,
A first tooth portion 24 is provided to form the meshing portion 12 .

This embodiment has drawbacks such as the fact that a gap corresponding to the elastic deformation of the cylindrical hanging piece 16 must be provided between the cylindrical hanging piece 16 and the meshing cylinder 26, and that the manufacturing process is time-consuming. Yes, but the meshing part 12
Since the cap is not located on the outer periphery of the cap A, the overall structure of the cap can be made smaller, which is effective when the design layout inevitably requires a smaller cap.

In the first and second embodiments, the elasticity of the cylindrical hanging piece 16 is imparted by the notch 19, but if the cylindrical hanging piece 16 is made elastically deformable by the notch 19, torque control can be achieved. To achieve this purpose, the cut 19 need not be a complete transmission groove as shown in FIGS.
As shown in Figures A, B, and C, a part of the cut groove is a thin film-like film body 28 or a thin film pleat-like film body 29
It may be closed with

(Effects of the Invention) As described above, according to the present invention, the rotation of the handle member is transmitted to the cap body side via the rotation transmission mechanism, and this rotation transmission mechanism is tightened. Because it has a torque control function, when the tightening torque reaches a certain value when installing the cap, the handle member will not spin freely, and the cap and O-ring will not be damaged due to over-tightening. When removing it, the screws between the filler neck and the cap body will be unscrewed and the gap will gradually widen.
The high pressure in the tank is not discharged all at once, and the cap can be removed safely without the cap scattering or fuel blowback that occurs with conventional caps. In addition, this cap has a rotation transmission mechanism in which the threaded part and the engaging part are provided in separate locations, so it is cost-effective and has durability due to abrasion, even if it is made of synthetic resin that can be easily shaped. The decline in sexual performance can be kept to a minimum.

Furthermore, the aforementioned tightening torque control function is performed by threading the cylindrical hanging piece hanging down from the handle member and the threaded part provided on the upper inner circumferential surface of the cap body, so the number of parts is reduced and the configuration can be simplified. At the same time, the cap shape does not become large, which is advantageous in terms of space factor.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a plan view of a cap according to the invention, FIG.
The figure is a vertical sectional view taken along the - line in Figure 1, Figure 3 is a bottom view with only the handle member in the state shown in Figure 2 extracted, and Figure 4 is a bottom view with only the cap body extracted and the valve mechanism. Bottom view when removed, Nos. 5 and 6
The figures are - lines and - lines in Figures 3 and 4, respectively.
7 is a longitudinal sectional view of a cap showing another embodiment; FIG. 8 is a longitudinal sectional view of a conventional cap; FIG. 9 is a transverse sectional view of another conventional cap; FIG. The figures are a partial vertical sectional view and a bottom view of a cap showing still another embodiment. A... Cap, 1... Filler neck, 2...
... Cap body, 3 ... Handle member, 4 ... Cylinder part, 6 ... Rotation transmission mechanism, 7 ... Second male screw, 8
...Second female thread, 10...Handle, 11...Threaded portion, 12...Matching portion, 13...Top plate, 16...Cylindrical hanging piece, 17...First male thread, 18...First female thread, 19...notch, 20...projection, 21
... Skirt part, 22 ... Inward protruding ring, 23
...Second tooth section, 24...First tooth section.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. Second female thread 8 provided in filler neck 1
It consists of a cylindrical part 2 having a second male thread 7 that is screwed into the cylindrical part 2, and an annular ridge part 20 integrally formed at the upper end of this cylindrical part with a diameter larger than the outer diameter of the cylindrical part, and which is used to tighten the fillet neck of the fuel tank. a cap body 2 to be closed; a handle member 3 that covers the cap body and is rotatably placed on the body; a handle member 3 formed to protrude radially outward due to the enlarged diameter of the cap body; and an elastic sealing material 9 that is attached to the jaw portion 20a and seals between the fillet neck and the cap body.In the fuel tank cap A, the handle member is moved up and down with respect to the cap body by rotation of the handle member. Threaded part 11
and an engagement provided at the abutment portion between the handle member and the cap body, which is formed so that the handle member and the cap body engage with each other when the handle member is raised by the threaded portion, and are disengaged when the handle member descends. The threaded portion includes a cylindrical portion concentrically hanging from the lower surface of the top plate 13 constituting the handle member in correspondence with the inner circumferential surface of the cylindrical portion constituting the cap body. The cylindrical hanging piece 16 is composed of a first male thread 17 provided on the outer circumferential surface of the cylindrical hanging piece 16 and the first female thread 18 provided on the inner circumferential surface of the cylindrical portion. so that when the cap body is screwed into the filler neck and the rotational force of the handle member exceeds a certain value, the threaded thread in the threaded portion can overcome the other thread and rotate. A cap for a fuel tank, characterized in that the threaded portion thereof is provided with elasticity. 2 The engaging portion is the upper end protruding edge 2 of the cap body.
0 and the upper surface of an inwardly protruding ring 22 formed to protrude below the projecting edge from the skirt portion 21 of the handle member provided so as to surround the projecting edge. 2. The fuel tank cap according to claim 1, comprising a first tooth portion 24 and a second tooth portion 23 formed so as to be able to mesh with each other when rotated in the direction. 3. The fuel tank cap according to any one of claims 1 to 2, wherein the cap body and the handle member are made of synthetic resin.