Hot plastic bottle packer

In a plastic bottle packer wherein columns of bottles are continuously fed by line pressure between lane guides down an inclined path defining means such that groups of bottles are dropped off a downstream edge of said path into cases continuously fed below said path and in end-to-end relationship, and wherein a super-structure is provided for supporting a plurality of separator disks for rotation on an axis spaced above the path at a location where the cases enter a load station to receive the article groups, the improvement comprising:

• a cross shaft defining said axis;
• spaced sprockets carried by said cross shaft for rotation thereon;
• flight chains driven by said sprockets;
• chain track support plates mounted to said cross shaft;
• chain tracks mounted to said support plates and defining at least portions of the paths taken by said flight chains, said path portions being oriented in a direction that converges with the path of the bottles approaching said load station;
• and
• flight bars carried by said chains, each flight bar defining lugs that move downwardly between the lane guides to create spaces between certain bottles in said columns whereby the bottles are grouped for dropping into the individual cases at the load station.