US 5,666,764 AGranted

Fixed hinge-door removal/door seal resolution

AssigneeWhirlpool Corporation

InventorsScott M. Beatty, David Foss, James L. Willis

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Abstract

An improved refrigerator hinge assembly which provides for maintaining the proper adjusted position of a refrigerator door with respect to its associated cabinet. A factory setting of the refrigerator door can be accurately maintained with precision even after the hinges are removed for field installation of the refrigerator such as to pass a refrigerator through narrow doorways. A tap plate is located behind the cabinet cladding and has "wrapper" or hinge screw holes for clamping the position of the external hinge with hinge screws, while allowing for factory adjustment of the door position. After the door is factory adjusted in position, a supplemental mechanism is applied to fix the tap plate in the factory position independent of the hinge screws, such as an epoxy application or a separate and independent drill screw applied through the cabinet and engaging the tap plate.

Claims8

Dependent claims

A hinge assembly for mounting an appliance door, wherein the appliance provides a mounting surface adjacent the door, comprising:

a tap plate located on an inside of said mounting surface and fixed in a factory adjusted position;
a hinge located on an outside of said mounting surface substantially aligned with said tap plate;
said tap plate providing a plurality of screw engaging holes, said hinge providing a plurality of screw receiving holes each substantially aligned with one of said screw engaging holes, and said mounting surface having enlarged holes in registry with said screw receiving holes;
a plurality of screws for inserting through said screw receiving holes, said enlarged holes, and engaging said screw engaging holes to clamp said mounting surface between said hinge and said tap plate and thereby fix the position of said hinge relative to the tap plate;
and
a means for fixing said tap plate in the factory adjusted position relative to said mounting surface independent of said plurality of screws fixing the position of said hinge relative to the tap plate and so that the screw engaging holes of the tap plate cannot move relative to said mounting surface even upon removal of the plurality of screws and the hinge.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.