This invention is an improvement of a mechanical locking device specified in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/988,827, which is an improvement over U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/782,611, then allowed Apr. 16, 1989.
The allowed Patent Application '611 provides a gearshift lever locking device which comprises basically a relatively bulky main body housing most of the mechanical parts including sleeve, locking mechanism, hinge and others in a single unit. The bulky size of this main body requires a very large clearance in the gearshift lever which hindrance the applications of this anti-theft device in automobiles of relatively small gearshift lever clearances. The improvement made by Patent Application '827 moves the locking mechanism to the latching member and compresses the main body into a relatively small and simple sleeve and hinge structure. This modified anti-theft device can then be fitted into gearshift levers of very small clearance, resolving the first and foremost problem of adaptation and application of this type of anti-theft devices.
Despite the above improvement, however, the problems of adaptation are not limited to the clearance factor alone. Some of the others are: size of the lever, tilt angle between the lever and the slot, and length and width of such slot. That is: there are different sizes such as the diameters and shapes for the gearshift or control levers; the tilt angle between the lever and the slot may be different from 90 degrees; there may be different widths and lengths for the slot. A universally adaptable device should have mechanisms adjustable to all these factors. The present invention is developed to meet with this requirement.
Very briefly, I have found that the adaptation of an interlocking sleeve set with U-shaped channel of various diameters will take care of the size factor of the control lever. By means of a yoke structure slidably received in a latching member and moving the locking mechanism including the lock tumbler away from the base member, the tilt angle and slot length factors may be covered. Lastly, the introduction of a jacketed sheath structure will resolve the variations in the width of the slot. In this way, a new and versatile anti-theft device in the kit form is therefore resulted. I have also found that such a novel set of locking device may not only be applicable to gearshift lever of an automatic transmission for an automobile but also may be easily adaptable to gearshift lever of a conventional or standard shift automobile or even control levers of many machinery's operating in a slot structure. I therefore name this device as a control lever locking kit.