Patent ID: 7604035

Claim:
An apparatus for mounting a tire onto a vehicle wheel rim, said apparatus comprising: a rotatable drive shaft extending along a shaft rotation axis in an axial direction; a mounting head secured on said drive shaft; an actuator rod axially slidably arranged coaxially along said drive shaft; first and second slide plates carried slidably by said mounting head to be slidable orthogonally to said axial direction; a deflecting element that couples said actuator rod separately to each one of said slide plates so as to be adapted to transmit an axial motion of said actuator rod in said axial direction to mutually separate sliding motions of said slide plates orthogonal to said axial direction; first and second tire mounting tools including a tire bead deflector adapted to deflect a tire bead of the tire to be mounted and a pressing roller adapted to press a tire sidewall of the tire to be mounted, wherein said first tire mounting tool is secured to said first slide plate and said second tire mounting tool is secured to said second slide plate, and wherein said first tire mounting tool is pivotable about a pivot axis parallel to said shaft rotation axis; and a pivot arm with one end secured to said first tire mounting tool and with another end connected to a pivot element mounted at said shaft rotation axis or on said second tire mounting tool, wherein said pivot arm is adapted to pivot said first tire mounting tool about said pivot axis to a prescribed tangential pivot position as said first tire mounting tool is slidingly displaced with said first slide plate to a first tool radius about said shaft rotation axis and said second tire mounting tool is slidingly displaced with said second slide plate to a second tool radius about said shaft rotation axis to adjust to a wheel diameter of the vehicle wheel rim.