Patent ID: 7384014

Claim:
A seat belt retractor ( 20 ) having ELR and ALR modes of operation, the retractor comprising a sensor pawl ( 44 ) movable between a release and a locked position with one or more teeth of a ratchet wheel ( 46 ), the ratchet wheel rotatable in correspondence with a spool of the retractor; the sensor pawl forming part of both ELR and ALR locking mechanisms; the retractor also including first and second cam disks configured to rotate about an axis of rotation in correspondence with the rotation of the spool; the axis of rotation for each of the first and second cam disks and that of the spool being colinear; a periphery of each cam disk configured to provide a respective first and second cam surface of varying radial dimension; the second cam surface of the second disk overlaid relative to the first cam disk and configured to selectively obscure portions of the first cam disk as a function of the rotation of the second cam disk, and to selectively permit access to various portions of the first cam surface as a function of the rotation of the second cam disk by presenting a depression in the second cam surface to a cam follower and to prevent access to the first cam surface by presenting another profile in the second cam surface to the cam follower, a spring biased first lever ( 130 ) which includes the cam follower ( 132 ), the cam follower is biased into engagement with the first cam surface during instances when the cam follower is not engaged with the second cam surface, the first lever as well as cam follower, is movable to a respective first position upon interaction of the cam follower with the first cam surface and when in such first position urges the sensor pawl ( 44 ) toward engagement with the ratchet wheel ( 46 ), the first lever is movable to a second position upon engagement with the second cam surface to urge the sensor pawl away from the ratchet wheel teeth thereby preventing the retractor from entering into its ALR mode of operation, the lever, when in its second position, biases the sensor pawl into engagement with a cooperating inertial mass ( 42 ) that is part of a vehicle sensitive locking mechanism of the seat belt retractor, this bias operative on the sensor pawl is effective to limit the motion of the inertial mass to lessen or eliminate vibrational movement of the inertial mass relative to the sensor pawl and lessen movement of the inertial mass relative to a support basket or support structure ( 44 a ) that supports the inertial mass thereby lessening acoustic and vibrational noise created by the movement and rattling of the sensor pawl or inertial mass.