Lifting mechanism for sliding doors
AssigneePullman Incorporated
InventorJohn W. Hutchison
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A sliding door includes a roller lifting mechanism provided by horizontally spaced bell cranks to which rollers are connected and which may be pivoted downwardly to engage a door track for raising the door so that it may be laterally moved to one side of the door opening. The lifting mechanism includes a cam element which is manually rotated to exert a push force on the bell crank levers for pivoting the same into the lift position. A modified version of the lift mechanism includes a linkage arrangement which exerts a pulling action on the bell cranks for achieving the lifting function.
Claims6
A sliding door including a vertical door panel, a track positioned below said door for slideably supporting the same, the improvement of a door lifting mechanism comprising;
- a pair of bell crank levers each including a horizontally disposed arm and a vertically disposed arm,
- means pivotally supporting said bell crank levers on said panel in horizontally spaced relation,
- a roller journalled on each of said horizontal arms,
- a shaft rotatably supported on said panel between said levers,
- a pair of pull type linkage arrangements each pivotally connected to a respective vertical arm of a respective lever, each linkage arrangement having independent upper and lower sections,
- each of said upper and lower link sections comprising a plurality of pivotally interconnected link portions to define a flexible link to accommodate pulling action and eliminate pushing action, and
- a vertically extending rockable member connected to said shaft and having upper and lower portions connected respectively to said upper and lower sections of each of said linkage arrangements and exerting pull forces on said linkage arrangement for pivoting said bell crank levers during rotation of said shaft to pivot said rollers into and out of lifting engagement relative to said track.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.