Remote controls for marine engine employing rotatable flexible shafts

Claim 1

In a marine engine having a throttle for controlling speed of said engine and a shift actuator for controlling direction of rotation of propeller shaft of said engine, the combination therewith of the improvement for remotely controlling said throttle and shift actuator from the helm of a marine vessel by application of opposed manipulatively distinguishable arcuate motions to respective controls for said throttle and shift actuator, comprising a throttle control knob and a shift actuator control knob supported for individual opposed arcuate co-planar movement at said helm, a driver pulley associated with each of said knobs and turned at its periphery by its associated control knob upon arcuate movement thereof, a driven pulley rotating in stepped-up response to rotation of each of said driver pulleys, a housing including a control panel front plate having opposed arcuate guideway slots therethrough defining range of movement of respective knobs and an interior partition having an arcuate guideway slot optically aligned with one of said front plate guideway slots, said partition dividing said housing into two compartments, a driver-driven pulley pair in each compartment, mounted at said helm for rotatably mounting said driver pulleys and said driven pulleys, control rods connecting the peripheries of respective driver pulleys with respective control knobs, one rod passing through said optically aligned guideway slots in said front plate and said partition and a second rod passing through said remaining guideway slot in said front plate, respective control rods being movable transversely to said front plate within their respective slots unitarily with respective control knobs in response to operator applied movement thereof, thrust bearing means separating respective driver pulleys from said interior partition and a rear panel of said housing, a rotatable flexible shaft connected co-axially to each of said driven pulleys for unitary rotation therewith, and means converting rotary motion of each of said flexible shafts into linear motion for control of said throttle and shift actuator.