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US 4,899,493 AGranted
Replaceable sliding door roller assembly
AssigneeColumbia Manufacturing Corporation
InventorJames E. Baumgarten
Life of this patent
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AssigneeColumbia Manufacturing Corporation
InventorJames E. Baumgarten
Estimating the term…
A roller assembly is provided as an easily replaceable assembly for use with a sliding door. The roller assembly includes a roller or wheel mounted in a roller housing and carried in a cantilevered manner at one end of a leaf spring. The opposite end of the leaf spring is permanently bent to form a hook which is engageable with a mounting tab on an upper or lower door edge through a mounting insertion gap in the door edge such that the leaf spring extends across a bearing tab. When the hook is engaged on the mounting tab the roller is carried in a roller receiving pocket in the door edge such that the leaf spring bears against a bearing tab. The leaf spring allows the roller to move into and out of a roller receiving pocket to accommodate imperfections and obstructions in a stationary track on the door frame in which the roller travels.
A sliding panel assembly comprising a planar panel for sliding longitudinally within a panel opening along tracks at the top and bottom of said panel opening and wherein the upper and lower portions of said panel are hollow behind upper and lower discontinuous transverse edges which define therein wheel receiving pockets, mounting hook insertion gaps longitudinally separated from said wheel receiving pockets by transverse bearing tabs, and hook clearance gaps longitudinally separated from said mounting hook insertion gaps by transverse mounting tabs, a plurality of removable wheel assemblies each having a wheel housing, a wheel rotatably mounted in said wheel housing, and a longitudinally extending leaf spring coupled at one end to said wheel housing and formed with a hook at its opposite end, whereby said hook of each leaf spring is engageable about a mounting tab to carry said wheel housing in a wheel receiving pocket with said leaf spring bearing against a bearing tab, such that said wheel housing is resiliently deflectable in the plane of said panel within said wheel receiving pocket in which it is carried.
A sliding door assembly in which a flat door is adapted to fit within a door opening and slide along tracks in a door frame which laterally constrains said door at its upper and lower edges and said upper and lower edges of said door are comprised of a plurality of sets of wheel receiving gaps which define in each set of gaps a wheel receiving pocket, a mounting insertion gap separated from said wheel receiving pocket by a bearing tab, and a mounting hook clearance gap separated from said mounting insertion gap by a mounting tab, and further comprising a plurality of removable wheel assemblies each having a wheel housing, a wheel rotatably mounted in said wheel housing, and a leaf spring having a hook with a return at one end and secured to said wheel housing at its opposite end, whereby said hooks are insertable into said mounting insertion gaps to pass behind said mounting tabs, and said returns of said hook are adapted to be pulled through said hook clearance gaps to pass outside of said mounting tabs such that when said hooks engage said mounting tabs, said leaf springs bear against the outside of said bearing tabs, and said wheel housings and said wheels reside within said wheel receiving pockets.
In a sliding door assembly in which rollers are mounted at the top and bottom of a sliding door and ride in stationary parallel tracks in a sliding door frame, the improvement wherein the top and bottom edges of said sliding door are provided with discontinuous structure extending perpendicular to the orientation of said sliding door and defining roller receiving pockets, and also for each of said roller receiving pockets, a transverse mounting tab delineated by gaps in said discontinuous structure and located in longitudinal displacement from an associated roller receiving pocket, and also a transverse bearing tab between an associated roller receiving pocket and an associated mounting tab, and each roller is rotatably mounted in a roller housing and each roller housing is carried at one end of a leaf spring, the other end of which is formed with a hook adapted for releasable engagement with a selected one of said mounting tabs such that said roller housing is carried in a roller receiving pocket and said leaf spring passes across a bearing tab.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.