Crimp on flange tool for doorseals

Abstract

A crimp on flange tool of the type used to crimp door seals to vehicle door frames, comprising a handheld tool connected by a flexible drive coupling to a remote, separate drive unit whose weight is not added to the weight of the handheld tool when used by a human operator. The invention further includes a novel operator handle arrangement for the handheld tool, in which a handle is on-axis with the crimping rollers. Another aspect of the invention is a novel roller arrangement comprising two sets of parallel rollers, with a first set being spaced more widely to function as guide rollers and a second, downstream set being spaced more narrowly to crimp a seal fed to them by the guide rollers.

I claim:  
     
         1 . A crimp on flange tool of the type used to crimp door seals around doorframes, comprising: 
 a hand held tool portion comprising a roller head and operator handle;    a separate drive unit; and,    a flexible drive coupling between the drive unit and the hand held tool portion for providing a drive force to one or more driven rollers on the roller head.    
     
     
         2 . The tool of    claim 1   , wherein the operator handle is aligned with the axes of the driven rollers on the roller head.  
     
     
         3 . The tool of    claim 2   , further including a secondary handle protruding laterally from the roller head generally perpendicular to the operator handle.  
     
     
         4 . The tool of    claim 3   , wherein the secondary handle includes a trigger mechanism for intermittently causing the flexible drive coupling to operate the driven rollers.  
     
     
         5 . The tool of    claim 1   , wherein the drive unit comprises an air drive unit with an air-driven motor coupled to the flexible drive coupling.  
     
     
         6 . An improved roller arrangement for a crimp on flange tool of the type used to crimp door seals around doorframes, comprising: 
 a first set of parallel guide rollers on a roller head, the guide rollers being spaced apart a first distance corresponding to a distance adapted to engage a seal without crimping the seal; and,    a second set of crimping rollers parallel to and downstream from the first set, the crimping rollers being spaced apart a distance less than the distance at which the guide rollers are spaced, the spacing between the crimping rollers being aligned with the spacing between the guide rollers such that the guide rollers automatically align a seal to pass between the crimping rollers.    
     
     
         7 . The roller arrangement of    claim 6   , wherein one of the guide rollers is a driven roller, and wherein one of the crimping rollers is a driven roller.  
     
     
         8 . The roller arrangement of    claim 7   , wherein the driven guide roller and the driven crimping roller are diagonally opposite one another.  
     
     
         9 . The roller arrangement of    claim 6   , wherein at least one of the rollers is removable from the roller head and replaceable with a replacement roller.  
     
     
         10 . The roller arrangement of    claim 9   , wherein a driven crimping roller is removable and replaceable with a replacement driven crimping roller.  
     
     
         11 . The roller arrangement of    claim 6   , further including a worm drive located in the roller head in operative connection with at least one driven roller, the worm drive having an axis generally perpendicular to the axes of the rollers.  
     
     
         12 . The roller arrangement of    claim 11   , wherein the worm drive includes an adapter adapted to be coupled to a drive mechanism, wherein the adapter is taken from a group consisting of a plurality of adapter ends, each of which is adapted to engage a different type of drive mechanism.