Fixture for checking the alignment of a loadwheel with the spindle of a tire uniformity machine

In a tire uniformity testing machine of the type having a spindle and a pair of spaced moveable chucks, and a rotatable member spaced from the spindle, wherein said chucks have surfaces;

• wherein the improvement comprises moveable block means adapted to be removably clamped between the chucks for checking the alignment of the spindle with respect to said rotatable member, said block means having a pair of surfaces, each engageable with a corresponding surface on each of the respective chucks for automatically aligning said block means in a predetermined position with respect to the spindle upon closing of the chucks;
• and sensor means mounted on the block means for contacting the spaced rotatable member to measure the alignment of said member with respect to the spindle.

In a tire uniformity machine of the type having a vertical spindle assembly, a chuck assembly having a pair of vertically spaced rims with a nose cone mounted on one of the rims and a nose cone sleeve mounted on the other rim, and a loadwheel rotatably mounted independent of and spaced from the spindle assembly;

• an improvement comprising an alignment fixture removably clamped between the nose cone and nose cone sleeve, said fixture having an adaptor block formed with a conical-shaped recess and an aligned conical-shaped projection complementary to the nose cone and the nose cone sleeve, respectively;
• a sensor mounting bar extending parallel to a common centerline of said recess and projection;
• and a pair of sensor means mounted on the bar for engaging spaced surface of the loadwheel to measure the parallelism of said loadwheel with respect to the spindle.