Electric power plant for vehicles

Claim 1

In a wheel vehicle having front and rear wheels and a body mounted thereon, said vehicle being driven by electric motors and having a power plant enclosure mounted on a removable base, characterized in that said removable base is arranged wholly forwardly of the front wheels and transversely of the vehicle and is formed by a hollow shaped member comprising an upper plate, a lower plate, opposite vertical side plates supportingly connecting the upper and the lower plates, and vertical front and rear plates fixedly connecting the upper and the lower plates also, said removable base being mounted through at least two locking means on a pair of box-like frame units which are integrally secured to the bottom of a vehicle body and extend in parallel to each other along the longitudinal direction of the vehicle body, wherein each of the locking means comprises a pneumatic or hydraulic cylinder within which a piston is slidably accommodated, the cylinder being fixedly secured to a side plate member of each frame unit and the piston being always urged in one direction by a compression spring interposed between the piston and bottom of the cylinder, a piston rod fixedly connected at one end thereof to the piston on the opposite side of the compression spring, the other end of the piston rod extending through a pressure chamber of the cylinder and projecting out thereof, a rockable lever pivotally connected at one end thereof to the said other end of the piston rod and having a spline hole formed at a boss part of the other end of the rockable lever, a spline shaft vertically extending through the spline hole of the rockable lever from a lower plate member of the frame unit to which the lower end of the spline shaft is fixedly secured through a nut and projecting the upper end thereof through a substantially rectangular opening formed in the lower plate of the removable base, into a hollow space thereof, the projected upper end of the spline shaft having a head which is formed in a similar shape in cross section to the rectangular opening, but slightly smaller than the opening, wherein in order to lock the removable base on the frame units, the head of the spline shaft is engaged with an upper surface of the lower plate of the removable base when the spline shaft is rotated through the piston rod and the rockable lever by the resilient force of the compression spring, while in order to remove the removable base from the frame units the head is disengaged from the upper surface of the lower plate of the removable base when the spline shaft is rotated in the opposite direction by a pneumatic or hydraulic pressure counteracted to the resilient force of the compression spring.