1. Field of The Invention
The present invention relates to a bump stop (or stopper) seat structure of a suspension of a vehicle.
2. Description of The Related Art
FIG. 4 is a perspective view of an ordinary conventional axle suspension. FIGS. 5 and 6 are front views of primary parts of a bump stop seat structure of a conventional suspension for illustrating an operation thereof. The conventional axle suspension is provided with left and right coil springs 4, 4 and shock absorbers 5, 5, which are interposed between the bottom portion of an automobile body 1 (see FIG. 5) and an axle 2 and thus connect the body 1 to wheels 3 through the axle 2 to thereby suspend the wheels 3 and so on. The wheels 3 are attached to both ends of the axle 2, respectively, and further, a stop (or stopper) seat 7 is provided on each end portion of an axle housing 6 of the axle 2 (see FIGS. 4 and 5).
This stop seat 7 has a top end face 7a, which is normally level and flat and faces upwardly, as shown in FIG. 7. When the coil spring 4 is compressed as a result of what is called a stroke rolling movement or motion (namely, a stroke of a rolling movement) of the axle 2 and the wheels 3 acting as one body, which is caused by centrifugal force undergone by the automobile during cornering, the flat end face 7a comes in contact with a bump stop 9 mounted on the bottom portion of the automobile body 1. Consequently, a tire 8 is prevented from bumping the automobile body 1.
Further, when one of the side portions of the vehicle (or automobile) has traveled the maximum (or upper) limit of what is called a bump stroke (namely, the moving range of the suspension) and thus the bump stop seat 7 is in contact with the bump stop 9 and moreover, this side portion of the vehicle does not continue this stroke (or movement), the other side portion of the vehicle is brought into what is called a full roll state in which the coil spring of this side portion thereof is stretched to full length.
However, in the conventional bump stop seat structure, when the position C.sub.1 of the roll center (in the case of FIG. 5) is lowered to the position C.sub.2 thereof by a distance H, as illustrated in FIG. 6, in order to reduce a change due to scuffs formed on the coil spring, the following change occurs. Namely, the rolling movement causes the tire 8 to go inwardly in the direction of width of the vehicle (namely, in the transverse direction thereof). However, the displacement L.sub.2 in the transverse direction of the tire 8 in the case of FIG. 6 is larger than that L.sub.1 in the transverse direction thereof in the case of FIG. 5. Thus, the conventional bump stop seat structure has a problem in that the clearance or gap S.sub.2 between the side surface 1a of the room (or cabin), which is on the side of the body 1, of the vehicle and the inner side surface 8a of the tire 8 in the case of FIG. 6 is smaller than the gap S.sub.1 therebetween in the case of FIG. 5 and that the interior width should be reduced by the decreased amount of the gap.
The present invention is accomplished to solve the foregoing problem of the conventional bump seat structure.