Vehicle Door Alignment Device

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to a tool used for alignment of a door in a vehicle.

2. Description of the Prior Art

The alignment of a door in a motor vehicle is typically accomplished by applying force to the door until an area at or near the door hinges is bent and the door is aligned. U.S. Pat. No. 4,399,683 discloses a vehicle door aligning tool that is comprised of a lever that attaches at a first axial location to a lock pin on a door jamb of an associated vehicle body, the lever attaching at a second axial location to an associated door lock of an associated door. Also known to the applicant is a tool much like that described in the above referenced patent, the main differences being that the non-patented tool engages in the door lock by means of a loop rather than a shoulder bolt, has a means for engaging the door lock which is pivotally attached to the lever, and is accompanied by a pair of shims for use at the engagement of the tool with the door lock.

While the above referenced prior art teaches of devices for aligning vehicle doors, several problems exist with those devices.

First, the engagement of the devices taught by the prior art with the door lock leaves some play between the devices and the door lock. Due to this play the devices tend to pivot around the door lock with which they are engaged, when they are used to pry upward or downward the door in order to bend the metal hinges of the door or the area surrounding the hinges. This pivoting can cause damage to the lock, which on occasion may cause the door to open during use, endangering the vehicle's occupants. The surface of the door surrounding the lock, typically made of metal, may be bent by the device or the paint on that surface may be damaged. Vehicle identification numbers and computerized bar codes, both of which are modernly glued on to the door surface near the lock, may also be damaged thwarting their uses.

Second, the tendency of the devices to pivot when used to force a door up or down also causes difficulties to the operator of the devices, as he or she is forced to apply torque to the lever to attempt to avoid the damages mentioned above.

Third, the play between the devices and the door lock makes it difficult for the operator to gauge the amount of adjustment being provided to the door hinge area, resulting in misalignment and repeated adjustments.

Fourth, the prior art devices only allow alignment of the door in a vertical direction with the door almost closed, and do not provide any means for vertical adjustment of the door while it is fully open, which can be needed with any vehicle, and is commonly needed with many modern cars.

Fifth, the prior art teaches no means for dealing with large variations in the distance that the outside wall of the door extends beyond the door lock in the direction away from the door hinges. The doors of many vehicles, especially minivans, have outside walls that extend so far beyond the door lock that a door alignment device used for an average car door will not work on there doors, as the device cannot simultaneously engage in the door lock and the lock pin of the associated vehicle and avoid the outside wall.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a vehicle door alignment tool that does not damage the door lock, latch, or the area of the door surrounding the door lock or latch.

It is another object of the present invention to provide a door alignment tool that does not require the operator to apply a compensating torque to avoid damaging the door lock, latch, or at the area surrounding the door lock or latch.

It is another object of the present invention to provide a door alignment tool that can engage in any vehicle door latch of common use, regardless of the type of lock pin that fits into that door latch or the length that the outside wall of the door extends beyond the latch.

It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a door alignment tool for which the adjustments made with the tool are not difficult to gauge due to play between the tool and the door latch or lock.

Finally, it is yet another object of the present invention to provide a door alignment tool that can provide a vertical adjustment of a door with the door either fully open or almost closed, or at any amount of door opening between those extremes.

The present invention accomplishes these objectives and others that will become apparent to those skilled in the art by providing a novel hook that can engage in a door lock or latch of any modern vehicle known to the applicant. The invention also discloses novel spin locking clamp that firmly holds the hook, or other devices for engagement in a vehicle door lock, eliminating play between the alignment tool and door that can damage the door surface, lock or latch or cause difficulty to the operator of alignment tool. The bolt is set at an angle to match the angle of opening of the door, and the bolt is of a length that can be adjusted to allow the hook or other door engagement devices to engage in a door lock or latch without damaging an outer wall of the door, despite typically large variations in length of the outer wall. All of these advances can be combined in a vehicle door alignment tool involving a lever on a stand, the lever holding a door lock engagement and clamping device mentioned above, the stand having a rotatable fork that can be hooked on a pinch weld located under the associated vehicle, thereby avoiding damage to the vehicle near a lock pin, the stand also able to be operated independently of the associated vehicle, thereby allowing adjustments of the door with the door open any desired or necessary amount.

The above elements may be utilized in combination or separately. For example, the hook, spin locking clamp and angled, variable length bolt can be used with a lever that engages in a lock pin of an associated vehicle, rather than with the lever attached to a stand.

FIG. 1 is a side view diagram of a preferred embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 2 is a top view diagram of the preferred embodiment of the invention shown in FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 is a top view diagram of another preferred embodiment of this invention.

FIG. 4 is a diagram of yet another preferred embodiment of this invention.

Referring now to FIG. 1, a door alignment tool 5 is shown positioned next to the end of a door 10 that is ajar from an associated vehicle 15 with which it is to be aligned. The door alignment tool 5 can be seen to include a foot 20 having a front end 25, a rear end 30, and a roughly straight shaft 35 between those ends. The front end 25 is shown to bend upward, terminating in a cylindrical sleeve 37 which houses a shaft 38 from which a fork 40 protrudes, the shaft 38 rotatably attached to the sleeve 37. The fork 40 fits a pinch weld 45 that runs under the sides of most modern vehicles, and is able to rotate in a horizontal plane to enable the door alignment tool 5 to engage in the end of the door 10 at various angles that the door can be opened. The sleeve 37 has a collar that prevents the shaft 38 from sliding out of the sleeve. To the rear end 30 a bar 50 is rigidly attached, the bar being generally normal to the shaft 35 and lying in a plane that includes the shaft, the plane being generally normal to the upward direction in which the front end 25 tends to arch.

Also generally normal to the plane containing the shaft 35 and the bar 50 is a stand 55 that is rigidly attached to the shaft. The stand 55 is slidably encased within a sheath 60 having a top 62, the stand and sheath both containing a series of holes 65 that may be aligned with each other to adjust the height of the tool. The sheath 60 is adjusted until the top is at about the level of a lock pin 70 for the door 10. Once the desired height is selected, a pin is inserted through a matching pair of holes 65 in the stand and sheath so as to fix the tool to the approximate height desired. It should be noted that any known means for varying this height and locking the selected height in place can be used instead of the stand 55, sheath 60, holes 65 and lock pin 70 described above.

Pivotally connected to the top 62 by a pin 72 is a lever 75, which is able to rotate only in a plane that contains the stand 55 and the shaft 35. The top 62 is notched on sides not holding the pin 72 so as to allow the lever 75 freedom to rotate. The lever 75 contains several threaded cylindrical apertures 80 spaced successively from the pin 72, the apertures each having an axis that is generally parallel to an axis about which the lever 75 rotates.

Referring now to FIG. 2, a top view diagram of the device 5 and the door 10 can be seen. A bolt 85 is threaded into one of the apertures 80 in the lever 75. A cylindrical plate 90 having a flat front surface 92, an axis normal to that surface and an axial threaded cylindrical aperture is threaded on the bolt 85 between the lever 75 and a head 95 that fits into a latch 100 on the door 10. The surface 92 of the plate is coated with a material such as rubber or plastic that will not scratch the paint of the door. After the head 95 is engaged in the latch 100 the plate 90 is spun on the bolt until it presses firmly on an end surface 110 of the door 10.

The bolt 85 is threaded into the lever 75 a distance far enough to ensure that the lever avoids contact with an outside wall 105 of the door 10. The tool 5 is thus easily able to accommodate doors having outside walls of various lengths. The coated plate 90 clamps the end surface 110 of the door 10 tightly, avoiding the damage and difficulty of use prevalent in the prior art. The foot 20 rests on a floor, thereby providing support for lifting the door 10 with the lever 75, which is perhaps the most common type of adjustment, as doors often tend to sag. Support for downward adjustment of the door can come either from resting the fork 40 in the pinch weld 45 or standing on the shaft 35. The pinch weld 45 is commonly used for jacking cars and is further removed from view than the lock pin 70; using the pinch weld for support during alignment is therefore less likely to result in noticeable damage than using the lock pin.

The most commonly needed adjustment is accomplished with the door nearly closed, however it can be seen that the present invention can also be used on a door that is fully open, unlike the prior art. Adjustment of a fully open door is increasingly necessary with modern vehicles, as the gap at the juncture between the front outside wall of some vehicle doors and the outside wall of their associated vehicle bodies (the crack in the outside surface of the vehicle located just outside the door hinges when the door is closed) is made smaller. As an example of the smallness of this gap, some car advertisements display a small ball-bearing that rolls along various gaps of that car. This small gap in the outside wall at the door hinge can cause binding between the wall of the door and the wall of the vehicle that prevents adjustment while the door is nearly closed, or conversely, allows such adjustment only at the expense of damaging the wall of the door or the vehicle, or both. This conflict between the wall of the door and that of the vehicle is compounded by the fact that alignment of the door usually requires the door to be forced beyond the desired position of alignment so that the door becomes aligned when the force is removed and the door moves back to a relaxed position.

Although the support offered by the floor and the pinch weld can be seen to have advantages over that of the lock pin, some of the elements of the present invention can also be used to improve prior art devices that use lock pins for support. Referring now to FIG. 3, a top view of a lever 120 is shown having an end 125 that can be hooked on a lock pin 130 via either a circular aperture or a pair of oppositely disposed arcuate apertures, as disclosed in the prior art. The lever 120 contains several threaded cylindrical apertures 130, each aperture having an axis 135 that is angled slightly away from normal to the lever, so as to more accurately align with a door that is open at a slight angle. The several apertures 130 offer a variety of angles to fit a variety of door lengths, although it turns out that the angle does not vary greatly, due to little variation in door lengths and the small angle that a door is open during this type of alignment.

A threaded bolt 140 having a head 145 is threaded into one of the apertures 130. As in the previous embodiment, a plate 150 containing a threaded cylindrical aperture has been threaded on to the bolt 140. After the head has engaged in a latch 155 of a door 160, the plate is rotated on the bolt 140 until the door is firmly clamped, at which time the door can be aligned. It should be noted that while the plate 150 allows the door 160 to be rigidly attached to the lever 120 in a direction that suffered from an undesirable torque in the previous embodiments, the lever is still free to rotate relative to the door in a direction necessary for alignment, as the bolt 140 is free to rotate in the aperture 128.

Referring now to FIG. 4, another preferred embodiment of the present invention is shown. A hooked head 165 is shown having an elongated lip 170 that projects at an angle approximately normal to an axis of a bolt 175 to which the head 165 is attached. Many modern vehicles do not have a lock pin such as that described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,399,683, instead utilizing a loop 177 that engages in a specialized door latch and lock. As a result, the apparatus described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,399,683 is incapable of aligning those doors. The hooked head 165 is especially useful in helping a door latch that is designed to receive a loop 177 to fully close. The other prior art known to the applicant, as described above, contains a loop that is able to engage in the latch and lock of some of those doors, but is difficult to engage in the latch or lock of a door for which the associated vehicle contains a lock pin.

The hooked head also has other advantages over the other door lock engagement devices known to the applicant. First, since it is attached to a long, threaded bolt 175, it is able to engage in doors having outside walls of various lengths. Second, since the lip 170 is disposed off the axis of the bolt 175 the hooked head easily engages in a door lock or latch, as the non-axial lip 170 is free to rotate and follow the axial portion of the head 165 into the latch or lock. This novel, self-aligning head 165 thereby averts the misalignment that can occur when the fixed loop is inserted into a latch or lock.

In addition to the hooked head 165, a series of shoulder bolts having heads varying in diameter by 1/16 increments, from 5/16 inch to 3/4 inch diameter is provided by the present invention in order to firmly clamp a latch or lock of a door. An example of two of these bolts 180 is shown in FIG. 4.

The foregoing description and drawings were given for illustrative purposes only, it being understood that the invention is not limited to the embodiments disclosed, but is intended to embrace any and all alternatives, equivalents, modifications and rearrangements as defined by the following claims.