Ball joint, especially for the steering linkage of motor vehicles

Claim 1

A ball joint, especially for the steering linkage of a motor vehicle, which includes: a ball head, housing means surrounding said ball head in spaced relationship thereto, and socket means of an elastically deformable material interposed between said housing means and the outer peripheral surface of said ball head and slidably engaging said outer peripheral surface of said ball heaD, said socket means comprising groups of tongue-shaped spring elements resulting from differing recesses therein, the spring elements of one group having a spring characteristic different from that of the spring elements of another group, at least one free end face of the tongue-shaped spring elements of one group of spring elements being spaced from said housing means by a distance less than the distance by which the corresponding free end face of the other group is spaced from said housing means, said groups of spring elements being respectively annularly arranged having coincident axis relationship, the spring elements of said groups being adapted to spring in axial direction of said socket means, said tongue-shaped spring elements residing in groups defining concentric nested circles of different diameters, the spring elements arranged along one and the same circle having the same spring characteristic but differing as to their spring characteristic from the spring elements arranged along another circle.