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On a vehicle, a gaiter or boot refers to a protective flexible sleeve covering a moving part, intended to keep the part clean.
A vehicle is a machine that transports people or cargo. Vehicles include wagons, bicycles, motor vehicles, railed vehicles, watercraft, amphibious vehicles, aircraft and spacecraft.
Gaiters are pleated rubber tubes enclosing the front suspension tubes of some motorcycles and mountain bikes with telescopic front forks. Gaiters protect the sliding parts of the front suspension from dirt and water.
A motorcycle fork connects a motorcycle's front wheel and axle to its frame, typically via a yoke, also known as a triple clamp, which consists of an upper yoke joined to a lower yoke via a steering stem, a shaft that runs through the steering head, creating the steering axis. Most forks incorporate the front suspension and front brake, and allow the front wheel to rotate about the steering axis so that the bike may be steered. Most handlebars attach to the top clamp in various ways, while clip-on handlebars clamp to the fork tubes, either just above or just below the upper triple clamp.
A mountain bike or mountain bicycle is a bicycle designed for off-road cycling. Mountain bikes share similarities with other bicycles, but incorporate features designed to enhance durability and performance in rough terrain. These typically include a front or full suspension, large knobby tires, more durable wheels, more powerful brakes, straight handlebars, and lower gear ratios for climbing steep grades.
A motorcycle's suspension serves a dual purpose: contributing to the vehicle's handling and braking, and providing safety and comfort by keeping the vehicle's passengers comfortably isolated from road noise, bumps and vibrations.
Similar gaiters to those described above find multiple uses on most vehicles. They are used at both ends of driveshafts, protecting constant-velocity joints from the ingress of dirt, and retaining the grease. They also prevent the ingress of dirt where one component slides within another, for example, on suspension struts or the ends of steering racks. Finally, they are also usually used to perform the same function on ball joints, which appear on suspension wishbones and steering tie rod ends. The gear stick gaiter is to resist dirt entering the ball joint at the bottom of the stick and to not have oil or grease from the joint exposed to passengers. They are commonly leather, faux leather, rubber or a waterproof cloth.
Constant-velocity joints allow a drive shaft to transmit power through a variable angle, at constant rotational speed, without an appreciable increase in friction or play. They are mainly used in front wheel drive vehicles. Modern rear wheel drive cars with independent rear suspension typically use CV joints at the ends of the rear axle halfshafts and increasingly use them on the drive shafts.
Suspension is the system of tires, tire air, springs, shock absorbers and linkages that connects a vehicle to its wheels and allows relative motion between the two. Suspension systems must support both road holding/handling and ride quality, which are at odds with each other. The tuning of suspensions involves finding the right compromise. It is important for the suspension to keep the road wheel in contact with the road surface as much as possible, because all the road or ground forces acting on the vehicle do so through the contact patches of the tires. The suspension also protects the vehicle itself and any cargo or luggage from damage and wear. The design of front and rear suspension of a car may be different.
Steering is the collection of components, linkages, etc. which allows any vehicle to follow the desired course. An exception is the case of rail transport by which rail tracks combined together with railroad switches provide the steering function. The primary purpose of the steering system is to allow the driver to guide the vehicle.
The MacPherson strut is a type of automotive suspension system that uses the top of a telescopic damper as the upper steering pivot. It is widely used in the front suspension of modern vehicles and is named for American automotive engineer Earle S. MacPherson, who invented and developed the design.
The kingpin, also king-pin and king pin, is the main pivot in the steering mechanism of a car or other vehicle.
A multi-link suspension is a type of vehicle suspension design typically used in independent suspensions, using three or more lateral arms, and one or more longitudinal arms. A wider definition considers any independent suspensions having three control links or more multi-link suspensions. These arms do not have to be of equal length, and may be angled away from their "obvious" direction. It was first introduced in the late 1960s on the Mercedes-Benz C111 and later on their W201 and W124 series.
A bushing or rubber bushing is a type of vibration isolator. It provides an interface between two parts, damping the energy transmitted through the bushing. A common application is in vehicle suspension systems, where a bushing made of rubber separates the faces of two metal objects while allowing a certain amount of movement. This movement allows the suspension parts to move freely, for example, when traveling over a large bump, while minimizing transmission of noise and small vibrations through to the chassis of the vehicle. A rubber bushing may also be described as a flexible mounting or antivibration mounting.
In automotive design, an FF, or front-engine, front-wheel-drive (FWD) layout places both the internal combustion engine and driven roadwheels at the front of the vehicle.
In automobiles, a double wishbone suspension is an independent suspension design using two wishbone-shaped arms to locate the wheel. Each wishbone or arm has two mounting points to the chassis and one joint at the knuckle. The shock absorber and coil spring mount to the wishbones to control vertical movement. Double wishbone designs allow the engineer to carefully control the motion of the wheel throughout suspension travel, controlling such parameters as camber angle, caster angle, toe pattern, roll center height, scrub radius, scuff and more.
The Chapman strut is a design of independent rear suspension used for light cars, particularly sports and racing cars. It takes its name from, and is best known for its use by, Colin Chapman of Lotus.
Paddle tires are mainly used on off road vehicles, specifically designed for use in sand and mud. They consist of a smooth tire core which has a series of large rubber cups attached to it. The volume inside of a paddle is much larger than the void of a knobby tire, so it is unlikely to clog up with sand/mud. A street legal mud tire is a more or less normal tire, but with extra large gaps or "voids" between each tread block to allow centrifugal force to "self-clean" or fling the mud out of the gap. Smaller gaps trap the mud in between the tire lugs, which turns the tire into something resembling a "slick" with no tread at all, which will have no traction in mud. A paddle tire is an even more extreme version of this, optimized for mud or sand. The paddle provides superior traction in the sand, in part, because the paddles dig into the sand and push off from the buried sand, not just the surface, and in mud, the gigantic "voids" give no place for mud to stick. They work something like a paddle wheel on a paddle-steamer. Street legal mud tires are a compromise between large voids and a smooth rolling shape for on-road use. The more "extreme" a mud tire is, the harsher and louder it is on a hard surface. A "tractor tire" on a farm tractor is a somewhat more mild version of a paddle tire, only the voids are smaller to allow for limited use on hard surfaces, and the "lugs" are angled to give lateral traction. A paddle tire is so optimized for mud that the shape is of no use on anything other than a soft surface, since the vibration and lack of control of the tire would otherwise render a vehicle almost unusable. One other way the paddle tire is a specialized-application-only is that it gives only forward/rearward traction. This means that it is used on a wheel that drives a vehicle to push it forward, but gives little "lateral" (side-to-side) traction. For that reason, the tires of the vehicle that steer it are generally more "normal" tires, since a paddle tire on a steering wheel will just slide sideways rather than pulling the vehicle with it. So many 4WD vehicles will use paddle tires only on the rear, although the front wheels are powered as well. On a 2WD or a motorbike, the rear wheel is the only drive wheel, and so putting a paddle tire on the front wheels is useless or worse, since steering performance will be negatively impacted.
The Hotchkiss drive is a shaft drive form of power transmission. It was the dominant means for front-engine, rear-wheel drive layout cars in the 20th century. The name comes from the French automobile manufacturer Hotchkiss, although other makers, such as Peerless, used similar systems before Hotchkiss.
In automotive suspension, a control arm, also known as an A-arm, is a hinged suspension link between the chassis and the suspension upright or hub that carries the wheel.
MK Sports Cars was founded by Martin Keenan and has recently moved to Rayne, Essex. It offers the Lotus Seven style kit car MK Indy. The MK Indy is available in four different designs - these are the Indy, Indy R and Indy RR and more recently the RX-5. The kits offer the option of various engines from cars and motorbikes.
The General Motors K platform was the automobile platform designation used for the rear wheel drive Cadillac Seville models from 1975 to 1979.
In an automobile, ball joints are spherical bearings that connect the control arms to the steering knuckles. They are used on virtually every automobile made and work similarly to the ball-and-socket design of the human hip joint.
A rag joint refers to certain flexible joints found on automobiles and other machines. They are typically found on steering shafts that connect the steering wheel to the steering gear input shaft, usually at the steering gear end. They provide a small amount of flex for a steering shaft within a few degrees of the same plane as the steering gear input shaft. It also provides some damping of vibration coming from the steering system, providing some isolation for the steering wheel.
Automotive suspension design is an aspect of automotive engineering, concerned with designing the suspension for cars and trucks. Suspension design for other vehicles is similar, though the process may not be as well established.
Motorcycle components and systems for a motorcycle are engineered, manufactured, and assembled in order to produce motorcycle models with the desired performance, aesthetics, and cost. The key components of modern motorcycles are presented below.