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US 4,902,549 AGranted
Sealing and trimming strips
AssigneeDraftex Industries Limited
InventorsRobert G. Bright, Erich Weimar
Life of this patent
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AssigneeDraftex Industries Limited
InventorsRobert G. Bright, Erich Weimar
Estimating the term…
A sealing strip for a vehicle door opening has a generally channel-shaped gripping part supporting a tubular sealing part. Initially, the side walls of the channel of the gripping part are splayed apart so as to enlarge the mouth of the channel. This eases the application of the gripping part to the normal mounting flange surrounding the vehicle door opening. The flange can pass freely between gripping lips on the opposite inside walls of the gripping part. A suitable tool is then employed to press the side walls of the channel towards each other so as to render them substantially parallel, thus pressing the lips into gripping and sealing contact with the flange surfaces, this configuration being therefore resiliently maintained by a metal carrier embedded in the gripping part. One of the sealing lips is particularly advantageous for secondary sealing purposes because it is directed outwardly of the mouth of the channel, unlike the other lips. The initial outward direction of this lip is maintained after fitment of the strip of the flange, because of the initial splaying apart of the side walls of the channel.
A channel-shaped sealing or finishing strip for fitment to a mounting flange running around an opening closable by a closure member, comprising
A sealing strip, comprising
A method for mounting a channel-shaped strip on a mounting flange running around a closable opening in a motor vehicle body, the strip comprising a channel-shaped metal carrier embedded in channel-shaped flexible material which also defines a lip on the inside of one of the side walls of the channel adjacent the mouth of the channel and directed towards the mouth of the channel, the method comprising the steps of applying the strip onto the mounting flange while the side walls of the strip are in splayed-apart configuration with the side walls of the channel diverging so as to provide an enlarged channel mouth permitting the strip to loosely embrace the mounting flange, the thereafter pressing the side walls towards each other into a subsequently generally parallel configuration in which the strip embracingly grips the mounting flange and is retained thereon solely by the resilience of the metal carrier and the frictional contact between the flexible material and the mounting flange.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.