Patent ID: 7908710

Claim:
A manhole cover device comprising: a frame having an opening and a peripheral rim surrounding the opening, the peripheral rim having an inside surface facing the opening and an outside surface opposed to the inside surface; a cover articulated to the frame for moving the cover between a closed position, closing the opening of the frame, and an open position for accessing the opening of the frame; a housing on the peripheral rim of the frame, the housing having two opposed substantially parallel end walls with respective holes, the holes being coaxial, the end walls forming a clevis and extending outward from the outside surface of the peripheral rim, wherein the holes in the end walls of the housing remain accessible from outside the manhole cover device after assembly of the manhole cover device, a connecting external wall transverse to, connected to, and connecting the two end walls to each other, the connecting external wall being located outside the rim, and a bottom wall transverse to and connected to the two end walls and the connecting wall and extending outwardly from the rim, and including two spaced apart recesses; a male component extending from the cover and including a tubular barrel located in the housing and having a bore with an inside diameter, the barrel including respective stubs located at each of two ends of the barrel, the stubs projecting in a common plane from a single side of the barrel, perpendicular to the bore of the barrel, respective stubs engaging corresponding recesses in the bottom wall, by gravity, when the cover is in the open position, thereby holding the cover in the open position and preventing movement of the cover to the closed position; and a hinge pin having an outside diameter smaller than the inside diameter of the bore of the barrel and insertable in the bore of the barrel and the holes in the end walls of the housing, and attachable, at ends of the hinge pin, to the end walls of the housing, the outside diameter of the hinge pin being sufficiently smaller than the inside diameter of the bore so that, when the hinge pin is attached to the end walls, the cover cannot be removed from the frame, and the cover can be lifted, against gravity, relative to the hinge pin, to place the respective stubs into the corresponding recesses to hold the cover in the open position, preventing movement of the cover to the open position, and the cover can be lifted, against gravity, to remove the respective stubs from the corresponding recesses to move the cover from the open position to the closed position, and, when the hinge pin is not in the housing, the cover can be extracted from the frame.