Framing apparatus for car body welding station

Abstract

A car body framing apparatus for use at a welding station for welding a plurality of loosely assembled vehicle body components. The apparatus includes a gate having an open frame structure including skeletal members and tooling members mounted on the frame structure by a plurality of mounting brackets. Each mounting bracket includes a planar platform structure mounting a respective tooling member and a U-shaped mounting structure sized to be fitted over a respective skeletal member, having a cross-sectional configuration complimentary to the cross-sectional configuration of the skeletal member, and welded to the skeletal member over substantially the entire U-shaped extent of the mounting structure whereby to provide a strong welded attachment of the bracket to the skeletal member and provide stiffening reinforcement for the skeletal member. Each mounting bracket includes a platform portion and a pair of legs outstanding from the platform portion; the platform surface for mounting the respective tooling member comprises one face of the platform portion; and the U-shaped mounting structure is constituted by the pair of legs in coaction with an opposite face of the platform portion.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.