The present invention relates generally to drain plugs and, more particularly, to drain plugs for use on fluid containers such as oil pans and the like.
Drain plugs are commonly used for sealing fluid drain holes, such as those found in vehicle engine oil pans and the like. Because of the large number of different vehicle manufacturers, it is common for vehicle maintenance shops to keep a supply of many different wrenches on hand, in both metric and English units, for removing and reinstalling different drain plugs. Because oil pan drain plugs are typically accessed from a pit in the floor below the vehicle, it is often necessary for the maintenance facility to keep many different sizes of wrenches within easy reach of a service technician located in the pit, which is typically dark, dirty, and cramped. However, it is generally undesirable to use adjustable wrenches (e.g., crescent wrenches), since those tend to round off the corners of the drain plug heads, rendering them unusable.
The present invention provides a universal drain plug system and method for sealing fluid drain holes, such as the drain hole of an engine oil pan or the like. The universal drain plug system allows vehicle maintenance facilities, in particular oil change facilities, to reduce the number of wrenches that are typically kept within easy reach of a maintenance technician. For example, typical “quick-lube” oil change shops must work very quickly to change the oil of each vehicle that arrives for service, in order to keep costs low and customers satisfied. To do this, a maintenance technician is typically positioned in a pit in the floor of the maintenance facility, and each customer's car is positioned over the pit so that the pit technician can remove the drain plug, drain the used motor oil (or transmission oil, gear lube, etc.) from the vehicle's oil pan, and replace the plug. Such pits are typically cramped, poorly lit, and dirty, making it difficult for a technician to quickly identify and select the proper size of wrench for removing and replacing each vehicle's drain plug, which must be accomplished before fresh oil is added to the vehicle's engine by another technician located above ground.
In one form of the present invention, a drain plug system for sealing drain holes of fluid containers includes a plurality of drain plugs, each drain plug having a different shaft portion but a common head portion. The shaft portions have different shaft diameters and/or thread heights and pitches, so that each drain plug can engage a different fluid drain hole of a different fluid container (such as oil pans for different vehicles or the like). The drain plugs' common head portions have tool-engaging portions with the same dimensions so that all of the drain plugs can be engaged and turned by the same tool.
Thus, for example, the present invention allows a vehicle maintenance shop that regularly performs oil changes to retrofit customers' vehicles with universal drain plugs having the appropriate threaded shaft for each vehicle, but with a common or universal head, so that when retrofitted vehicles return to the maintenance shop for subsequent oil changes, the technician who removes the drain plugs can do so using a single wrench on each retrofitted vehicle. In this manner, returning vehicles can all be serviced with a single wrench, which reduces the service time and clutter in each maintenance technician's work space.
These and other objects, advantages, purposes, and features of the present invention will become apparent upon review of the following specification in conjunction with the drawings.
Referring now to the drawings and the embodiments illustrated therein, a universal drain plug system 10 includes a plurality of drain plugs 12a-c, each having a respective head portion 14a-c of the same general size and shape (with substantially equal head diameters D), and respective threaded shaft portions 16a-c having different diameters d1-3 and/or thread dimensions (e.g. thread height and pitch), such as shown in
In the illustrated embodiment of
Thus, and as shown in
Accordingly, the universal drain plug system of the present invention allows for the commonization of drain plugs, in particular for the benefit of vehicle maintenance shops that service large volumes of different vehicles. For example, when a vehicle oil pan is equipped with a non-universal drain plug, the non-universal drain plug can be removed using an appropriate wrench, and then replaced with an appropriate one of the universal drain plugs 12 taken from universal drain plug system 10. This enables the use of a single wrench for future removal and reinstallation of all universal drain plugs, regardless of the type of drain plug that was original to the vehicle. It will be appreciated that the principles of the present invention are equally applicable to substantially all fluid drain plugs typically found on a vehicle, or in other applications, including transmission oil and differential oil drains, for example.
The drain plug retrofit or replacement process typically includes determining the thread type of the original drain plug and oil pan hole. This may be accomplished, for example, by using a male thread gauge to measure the threads of the drain plug hole, using a female thread gauge to measure the threads of the original drain plug, or by using a lookup table or other information source to determine the proper thread for a particular application or vehicle. Once the correct thread is determined, the technician can select the proper drain plug from the universal drain plug system or kit according to the diameter and thread dimensions of its threaded shaft, and then insert the selected drain plug into the oil pan hole in place of the original OEM drain plug.
Optionally, different retrofit kits may be provided with drain plug head portions that generally correspond to a size that is common to vehicles that are typically serviced by a given vehicle maintenance shop. For example, a shop that specializes in European or Asian vehicles may select a metric universal drain plug kit with a common metric head size that is already frequently found on the vehicles it services, while a shop that specializes in U.S. vehicles may select an English or SAE drain plug kit with a common English or SAE head size. The ability to select a universal drain plug retrofit kit having a head size that is already common to a range of vehicles helps to minimize the frequency with which a given shop will need to replace drain plugs to achieve substantial commonality among the vehicles it services.
Therefore, the present invention provides a universal drain plug system that allows technicians or service personnel to retrofit the oil pans of various vehicles that are serviced by a maintenance shop so that the retrofitted drain plugs can then be removed and replaced with a single tool, which can save maintenance time and thus improve the efficiency for future work on the vehicle. By providing a plurality of drain plugs having substantially the same head, with multiple different threaded shafts, substantially any drain plug hole can be accommodated, without need for different tools to engage different drain plug heads.
Changes and modifications to the specifically described embodiments may be carried out without departing from the principles of the present invention, which is intended to be limited only by the scope of the appended claims, as interpreted by the principles of patent law including the doctrine of equivalents.
The present application claims the benefit of U.S. provisional application Ser. No. 61/657,871, filed Jun. 10, 2012, which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
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