Patent Application
20180281164
The invention belongs to the process and tooling area for the automobile mechanics and specifically involves the processes and tools for the extraction of an engine injector belonging to a motor vehicle, for example a motor vehicle.
In a combustion engine of a motor vehicle, the fuel is under pressure before being injected in an engine combustion chamber using an injector. This injector is housed in a cylinder head and has a body with a part that protrudes from the cylinder head surface. This protruding part traditionally includes an electric control linked to the electronic system of the vehicle and a high-pressure connection through which the fuel under pressure is supplied. Traditionally, the protruding part of the injector extends to the outside surface of the cylinder head in the extension of the rest of the body and the electric control is located at the end of this protruding part. As for the high-pressure connection, it extends angularly in relation to this protruding part. The electric control drives a solenoid visible in the body of the injector and the position of which authorizes or bans the passage of fuel. Then the fuel is injected directly or indirectly in the combustion chamber by a nozzle tip of the injector.
When the injector is worn and must be changed, it is necessary to extract it from its housing by the outside surface of the cylinder head. This operation can be cumbersome when the injector is stuck in its housing because of oxidation phenomena and carbon existence in particular. There are very well known processes and tools that enable the removal of the injector from its housing. Conventionally, the processes consist in removing the electric control of the injector and managing to screw an extractor there. For example such an extractor is the form of a slide hammer comprising a donned sledge hammer on a shank with a nozzle. The injector is then extracted after the impact of the sledge hammer against the shank nozzle according to an extraction direction parallel to the longitudinal axis of the injector.
There are also processes and tools that enable the removal of the injector from its high-pressure connection. An extractor is fixed to this connection and includes a shank connected to a handle and a slide hammer donned around the said shank so as to be fixed vertically when the rod is fixed to the high-pressure connection of the injector. The injector is then extracted by the vertical impact of the sledge hammer against the nozzle of the shank. The seizing due to the existence of carbon may make this operation difficult. There is therefore a need for a process and a set of tools allowing to improve the extraction of the injector from its housing via its high-pressure connection.
In addition, depending on the injector models, the high-pressure connections can be different, and it would be interesting to find a process and a unique (or universal) set of tools to extract these different injectors. Finally, the correct positioning of the slide hammer is not always made possible because of the congestion in the engine environment and it would be interesting to offer a process and a set of tools that can be adapted to different engine environments.
The invention is intended to meet at least one of the problems of the previous method by offering a new process, tool and kit for extracting an injector that are easy to use, operated in different engine environments and adapted to any type of injector.
To this effect, and according to a first aspect, the purpose of this invention is about an extractor for extracting an engine injector from a motor vehicle, this injector being stuck in a housing with a high-pressure connection, the extractor comprising: a plunger comprising a stem at the end of which a handle is fixed and on its other end having assembly means on the high-pressure connection of the injector; and
According to particular operating procedures, the extractor can feature one or other of the following characteristics, taken separately or according to all possible combinations:
The invention also involves a kit for extracting an engine injector of a motor vehicle, the said injector being stuck in a housing and with a high-pressure connection, the kit comprising an extractor as defined above and one or several elements selected from among;
According to particular operating procedures, the kit can feature one or other of the following characteristics, taken separately or according to all possible combinations:
According to a second aspect, the purpose of invention is an extraction process for an engine injector of a motor vehicle, this injector being stuck in a housing and having a high-pressure connection, the process comprising the following steps:
a) mounting an extractor to the high-pressure connection of the injector; and
b) extracting the injector using the extractor according to a direction parallel to its longitudinal axis,
since the process is remarkable in that it includes the use of an extractor or a kit as defined above, and in that step b) also includes the rotating drive of the injector around its longitudinal axis by repeated impacts of the slide hammer on the stem of the plunger according to a direction being different from the injector extraction direction so as to retrieve it.
Step a) dealing with the mounting of the extractor preferably includes the setting up of at least a spacer on the stem of the plunger between the handle and the joint component and/or between the joint component and the said high-pressure connection.
Step a) dealing with the mounting of the extractor preferably includes the fixing up of the extractor to the high-pressure connection using an adapter and/or a connecting element.
Preferably, the joint component is positioned to a stop against the handle of the plunger or against a spacer during the impact operations on the stem by the slide hammer in order to make the injector start rotating so that the distance between the handle and the joint component is shorter than the distance between the joint component and the high-pressure connection of this injector.
As it will be understood after reading the definition which has just been given, the invention provides a tool and an extraction process for an injector allowing to retrieve the injector from its housing by rotating around its longitudinal axis before or simultaneously to the exertions provided for its vertical extraction or according to an axis parallel to its longitudinal direction. Unlike the prior method, the slide hammer is not fixed in a vertical position and can be moved on one and the other side of the stem of the plunger or positioned vertically. The extraction step of the injector is best performed with the combination of two movements, a translation towards the top and a rotation according to the longitudinal axis of the injector. The positioning of the slide hammer according to an angle less than 90 degrees horizontally allows you to pull the stem on one side of the injector. During the retrieval operation, the slide hammer will be positioned on one side of the stem of the plunger according to a specific horizontal angle so as to trigger the injector rotation according to its longitudinal axis in a specific rotation direction, then the hammer will be used on the other side of the stem of the plunger so as to trigger the injector rotation in the other direction. The tilt angle of the slide hammer in relation to the horizontal may be suited depending on the vehicle and engine environment.
The impact operations are preferably preceded by a translation movement of the joint component along the stem of the plunger to a position chosen by the operator. This position can be selected for the freedom of movement it provides, for example positioned to a stop against the handle of the plunger or against a spacer. Therefore, the invention allows to endow the exerted forces with torque for the injector rotation around its longitudinal axis and thus facilitates this operation.
The use of spacers is beneficial in that the invention allows then to keep the joint component away from the handle and/or the high-pressure connection in order to facilitate the handling of the slide hammer in a congested engine environment.
The extractor can be directly or indirectly fixed to the high-pressure connection of the injector. The extractor is indirectly fixed to the high-pressure connection, the latter can be fixed in different ways depending on the profile of the said high-pressure connection through different connecting elements and/or adapters. The use of these intermediary components is beneficial in that they contribute to the protection of the injector. Indeed, the high-pressure connection of an injector is a component with a certain degree of fragility, and the invention makes it possible to strengthen the mounting of the plunger to the said high-pressure connection so that it does not yield during the rotation and extraction operations.
The extractor and the kit of which it is part of are remarkable for their adaptability to different injector models on the market. The kit is a universal extraction kit that can be used on the vast majority of injectors known to date.
The invention will be well understood and other aspects and advantages will appear clearly after reading the description that follows, given as an example with reference to the drawing planks attached on which:
In the following description, the term “comprise” is synonymous with “include” and is not restrictive in that it allows the presence of other elements in the extractor, the kit and the process it is related to. It is understood that the term “comprise” includes the terms “consist in”. In the various figures, the same references are used to designate elements that are identical or similar.
In this brief, the process according to the invention will be described in parallel to the tools in relation to the invention for the implementation of the said process.
Reference is made in the first place in
According to the invention, the extractor is remarkable in that it also includes several parts which revolve in relation to each other, namely a plunger (17), a slide hammer (23) and a joint connection (31). The plunger (17) is in the form of a stem (19), whose one end is equipped with a handle (21) and its other end has mounting elements to the high-pressure connection (13) of the injector (1). The extractor (15) shown is fixed to the injector (1) by one of the ends of its plunger (17). The extractor (15) also includes a slide hammer in the form of a shank (25) which has a donned sledge hammer (27) around it. The shank (25) has a nozzle (29) on one end and is fixed by its other end to the plunger (17) through a joint component (31). Indeed, according to the invention the extractor (15) is remarkable in that the slide hammer (23) is connected to the plunger (17) by using a joint component (31) which can slide along the shank (25) of the plunger (17). The joint component (31) is in the form of a hinge with two parts revolving around a common axis. One of the parts include a threaded ring around the stem (19) of the plunger (17) so as to be articulated by a pivoting link sliding with the latter. The other part is fixed to the slide hammer (23) so that the latter is articulated by a pivoting link with the joint component (31) via the axis of this one. The joint component (31) favorably has two types of links, and preferably the joint component is also configured so that the pivot axis with the slide hammer (23) is perpendicular to the translation with the stem (19) of the plunger (17).
The process in relation to the invention includes the following steps:
The stem (19) of the plunger (15) is designed so that, during the mounting of the extractor (15) to the high-pressure connection (13) of the injector (1) in step a), the joint component (31) can slide along the said stem (19). Therefore the length of the stem is at least twice that of the joint component, preferably 3 times at least. Moreover, the link being a sliding pivoting-like link, the joint component (31) can be positioned on one or the other side of the stem (19) of the plunger (17) for performing step b).
Indeed, the process is remarkable in that step b) dealing with the extraction of the injector (1) Includes the retrieval of the injector (1) by putting into position of the shank of the slide hammer (23) according to an angle less than 90 degrees horizontally, and the impact of the sledge hammer (27) on the nozzle (29) of the shank (25) so as to trigger the rotation of the plunger (17) and the injector (1) around the longitudinal axis of the injector 1. The angle that the slide hammer creates horizontally may for example be less than 60, 45, 30 or 20 degrees or be positioned horizontally.
This operation can be repeated several times on the same side of the stem (19) of the plunger (17) until the slide hammer (23) positioning is hampered by the engine environment and then repeated on the other side of the stem (19) of the plunger (17) with for example intermittent vertical impacts of the sledge hammer (27) on the shank (25) nozzle (29) of the slide hammer (23), and so on until the injector (1) is extracted from its housing (3). Such joint movements allow you to facilitate the extraction of the injector (1) from its housing (3).
During the extraction process of the injector (1), the engine environment can interfere with the manipulation of the slide hammer so that it is preferable that the joint component (31) does get closer to the handle (21) of the plunger (17) by more than a distance “d”, as shown in
During the impacts of the slide hammer (23), the joint component (21) is positioned to a stop against the handle (21) of the plunger (17) or against a spacer (33) when the latter is visible, so that the distance between the joint component (31) and the handle (21) of the plunger (17) is less than the distance between the joint component (31) and the high-pressure connection (13).
Conventionally the high-pressure connection (13) includes an open end with an outer thread or a threaded bore. In that case the assembly means of the plunger to the high-pressure connection are in the form of an outer thread or a threaded bore. The mounting of the extractor (15) to high-pressure connection (13) of the injector (1) may be direct or indirect, it should be indirect preferably.
Alternately and according to a second operating procedure shown in
It is noted that this patent claims priority from Belgian Patent Application Serial Number BE 2017/5230 which was filed on Mar. 31, 2017, and French Utility Model 1770327, filed on Mar. 31, 2017. Both Belgian Patent Application Serial Number BE 2017/5230 and French Utility Model 1770327 are hereby incorporated by reference in their entireties.
Although certain example methods, apparatus and articles of manufacture have been described herein, the scope of coverage of this patent is not limited thereto. On the contrary, this patent covers all methods, apparatus and articles of manufacture fairly falling within the scope of the appended claims either literally or under the doctrine of equivalents.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017/5230 | Mar 2017 | BE | national |
| 1770327 | Mar 2017 | FR | national |
