Process of and an apparatus for producing green tires

An apparatus for producing green tires, comprising in combination:

• a tire band building mechanism including a revolvable member revolvable around it own axis to be indexed at first and second rotation positions, a pair of collapsible tire band building drums mounted on said revolvable member in spaced apart and parallel relation with each other to assume first and second station when said revolvable member is revolved and indexed at the respective first and second rotation positions, each of said tire band building drums being rotatable around its own axis, a revolving means for intermittently revolving and indexing said revolvable member into the first and second stations, and a pair of tire band building drum rotating means for rotating said tire band building drums;
• a belt building mechanism including a collapsible belt building drum disposed in coaxial and spaced apart relation with said tire band building drum occupying said second station and rotatable around its own axis, and a belt building drum rotating means for rotating said belt building drum;
• a tire building drum mechanism including a tire building drum disposed between and in coaxial relation with said tire band building drum occupying said second station and said belt building drum to be deformable between a cylindrical form and a toroidal form, and a tire building drum rotating means for rotating said tire building drum;
• and
• a transfer ring mechanism including a movable base structure movable to assume first, second and third positions, first and second transferring arrangements mounted on said movable base structure in spaced relation with each other along the axes of said tire band building drum, said belt building drum and said tire building drum with a distance between the mid-circumferential planes of said transferring arrangements substantially equal to a distance between the mid-circumferential planes of said tire building drum and said belt building drum, said first transferring arrangement surrounding said tire band building drum when said movable base structure is moved to the first position, said first transferring arrangement surrounding said tire building drum to transfer a green case thereon to said tire building drum and said second transferring arrangement surrounding said belt building drum to receive and endless belt from said belt building drum when said movable base structure is moved to said second position, said second transferring arrangement surrounding said tire building drum to transfer the endless belt, received on said second transferring arrangement, onto the green case on said tire building drum when said movable base structure is moved to the third position.