US 5,400,445 AGranted

Toilet tank trip lever assembly

AssigneeKohler Co.

InventorDouglas A. Hull

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Abstract

There is disclosed a mechanism for initiating and controlling a toilet: flush mechanism of the type which permits selection between two flush cycles which use different volumes of water end which, to do that, requires that the flush valve be lifted to either of two levels. Each of two rotating handles drives a shaft which rotates a flush lever arm. The shafts are concentric. One of flush lever arms has a longer crank portion than the other so that points on the lever portion move a greater vertical distance for a given angular rotation than move corresponding points on the flush lever arm with the shorter crank portion. A single blocking member limits the rotation of both flush lever arms to the same range of angular motion. Tabs on a bushing for the shafts supplement the blocking member by stopping rotation of the handle approximately when the blocking member contacts the flush lever arm driven by that handle.

Claims3

Dependent claims

A toilet tank trip lever assembly mountable through a hole in a wall of a toilet tank and being of the type that has two lever arms positionable in the tank to effectuate a higher volume flush or a lower volume flush as selected by the user, the assembly comprising:

a hollow first shaft extendable through and being rotatably supportable in the mounting hole, a first handle being mounted on the first shaft outside of the tank to rotate the first shaft;
a second shaft disposed in the first shaft hollow to rotate within the first shaft, and supporting outside of the tank a second handle that rotates the second shaft;
a first and a second flush lever arm positionable within the tank connected to the first shaft and the second shaft, respectively, such that rotation of the first handle rotates the first flush lever arm and rotation of the second handle rotates the second flush lever arm;
a blocking member extending transverse to both the first and second flush lever arms and adapted to be secured with respect to the tank so that the blocking member imposes a limit on the upward movement of both the first and the second flush lever arms;
a first stop element fixedly supportable on the tank wall;
and
a second stop element on at least one of the first and second handles;
wherein the stop elements interfere with each other when, upon rotation of said one of the handles, the flush lever arm associated with said one of the handles contacts the blocking member, whereby the interference between the stop elements supplements the action of the blocking member in limiting the range of rotation of the flush lever arm associated with said one of the handles when a lever arm is moving upward;
wherein rotation of the first handle does not rotate the second handle and rotation of the second handle does not rotate the first handle.

6 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.