Resiliently biased shoes for maintaining a vehicle door in an open position

DETAILED DESCRIPTION An object of the present invention is to provide a simple and cheap arrangement which is highly reliable over a period of time.
The invention therefore provides a mechanical device for maintaining a door, and in particular a motor vehicle door, in the open position, said device comprising an arm slidable in a guide having two shoes placed in facing relation and at a short distance from each other so as to define therebetween a space for the passage of the arm, the latter being provided on at least one of its sides facing the shoes with means for spreading apart said shoes, means having a resilient opposing action being provided in the guide for opposing the spreading apart of the shoes by the slidable arm, wherein the guide has at least one support surface element having a cylindrical outer shape and mechanically connected to the shoes and radially deformable by expansion and contraction respectively when the shoes are spread apart and moved towards each other, and the means having a resilient opposing action are formed by at least one coil spring coaxially mounted around and in contact with said support surface element.
In a preferred embodiment, the support surface element of the spring and the shoes constitutes a body in one piece.
Advantageously, this body is a hollow cylinder through which extend in a perpendicular direction the arm in its median part and is equipped with a spring at each of its end parts, the axis of the spring being colinear with the longitudinal axis of the body.
Preferably, the shoes are placed inside the cylinder.
According to a preferred modification, the coils of the spring or springs have their inner surface in contact with the support surface of planar shape so as to achieve a maximum area of contact with the support surface element.
Advantageously, the coils have a quadrangular section such as a square or rectangular section.
As will have no doubt been understood, the invention resides, in its basic features, in causing a spring of the helical type to operate by swelling, in other words in an "anti-mechanical" manner totally foreign to the specific normal modes of deformation of this type of spring