1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a tire valve connector, and more particularly to a dual-purpose tire valve connector connected to an end portion of a connection hose of an air-charging device, such as air pump or air inflator and universally applied to American inlet valves or French inlet valves of tires.
2. Description of the Related Art
Typically, current inlet valves of tires can be classified into two types, namely, American inlet valves and French inlet valves. To inflate an American tire and a French tire, a conventional air-charging device, such as an air pump, an air inflator and the like, is equipped with a dual-purpose tire inlet valve connector connected to an end portion of a connection hose of the air-charging device.
A conventional tire inlet valve connector includes a body, a nozzle, a pressing lever and a clamping seat. The body has a mounting hole therein and an inlet tube formed on the body, extending in a direction oblique relative to the mounting hole and communicating with the mounting hole. The nozzle is mounted in a bottom end of the mounting hole of the body. The pressing lever and the clamping seat are mounted in a top portion of the mounting hole. The clamping seat has a guiding hole formed at a bottom portion thereof and tapered downwards. A plunger is slidably mounted in the mounting hole to move up and down between the pressing lever and the clamping seat. A restoring spring is mounted between the plunger and the clamping seat such that the plunger can be pressed to move downwards by the pressing lever. The plunger has an axial hole formed on and recessed upwards from a bottom of the plunger. A spring is mounted in the axial hole and a bottom end of the spring is connected with a push post. The push post may stick out of the bottom of the plunger and penetrate into the clamping seat and the nozzle. Multiple movable claws are formed on a bottom end of the plunger to correspond to the guiding hole of the clamping seat, and provide elastic restoring force in a radial direction such that the claws have a holding effect as being limited by the guiding hole when the plunger is pressed by pressing lever to go down. When continuously going down, the plunger squeezes the nozzle to deform and hold a tire inlet valve. Accordingly, the foregoing conventional tire inlet valve connector is applicable to a dual-purpose tire inlet valve connector for American tire inlet value and French tire inlet valve.
In the foregoing tire inlet valve connector, the pressing lever is used to drive the plunger to go down, the claws are guided by the guiding hole of the clamping seat to jointly hold the push post to go down for the push post to be pressed on a valve core of an American tire inlet valve mounted in the nozzle. Alternatively, the push post is pressed on a French tire inlet valve mounted in the plunger sequentially through the nozzle and the clamping seat. However, after the plunger is operated for a period of time, reduced elasticity of the claws of the plunger arises from elastic fatigue of the claws and leads to unsmooth movement of the push post and malfunction of the conventional tire inlet valve connector upon connection with an American tire inlet valve or a French tire inlet valve.