Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha

Koichi Sugihara

Hiroshi Kawakami

Atsushi Watanabe

Harunori Shiratori

Fumio Kishida

Yasuji Taketsuna

Toshiyuki Kobayashi

Masashi Yamashita

Hiroyoshi Kako

Tomoyuki Maeda

Shogo Kato

An apparatus for controlling a clutch of a motor vehicle connected to an engine and having a driving and a driven rotating member. The apparatus is capable of controlling an amount of slip of the clutch during starting of the vehicle. The apparatus includes: an engine torque determining device for determining a torque of the engine; a clutch speed monitoring device for determining whether a speed of the driven rotating member has been raised to a level substantially equal to a speed of the engine; a first slip control device for controlling the amount of slip of the clutch such that a clutch torque to be transmitted through the clutch is smaller than the engine torque by a predetermined amount, before the clutch speed monitoring device determines that the speed of the driven rotating member has been raised to the level equal to the engine speed; and a fully engaging device for fully engaging the clutch when the clutch speed monitoring device determines that the speed of the driven rotating member has been raised to the level.

Apparatus for controlling slip amount of motor vehicle clutch during

A shock absorber includes a cylinder, a piston disposed movably in the cylinder to partition the interior of the cylinder into first and second liquid chambers and having two groups of ports affording communication between the first and second liquid chambers, a valve body disposed so as to open and close the port of each group in the piston and a piston rod connected with the piston and projecting from the cylinder to the outside. The shock absorber further includes a liquid path affording communication between the first and second liquid chambers without passing through the piston, first and second valves for generating respectively damping force with liquid flowing through the liquid path and regulator provided in the piston rod and capable of blocking liquid from flowing through the two groups of ports in the piston.

Shock absorber

A four-wheel steering system in a wheeled vehicle includes a lateral control shaft operatively connected at its opposite ends with a set of rear steerable road wheels, and a rear-wheel steering mechanism operatively connected to a front-wheel steering linkage for effecting axial displacement of the control shaft in response to operation of the front-wheel steering linkage. In the rear-wheel steering mechanism, a hydraulic power cylinder is adapted to control axial displacement of the control shaft in such a manner that the control shaft is returned to and retained in a neutral position in the occurrence of unexpected trouble in a hydraulic control circuit of the power cylinder to retain the rear road wheels in their neutral positions.

Steering system in wheeled vehicle

A power-assisted steering system includes a changeover valve unit comprising an input shaft to be rotated by the driver's steering effort applied thereto, an output shaft operatively connected to a hydraulic power cylinder associated with the steering system, a valve assembly for controlling the supply of fluid under pressure from a hydraulic pump to the power cylinder in response to relative rotation between the input and output shafts; and a hydraulic reaction mechanism for applying a reaction force to the input shaft in accordance with a hydraulic reaction pressure applied thereto. The reaction mechanism includes a reaction fluid chamber to be constantly applied with a predetermined small quantity of fluid under pressure and to be applied with a hydraulic pressure caused by relative rotation between the input and output shafts through a throttle. The system is arranged to increase the hydraulic pressure in the reaction fluid chamber in accordance with an increase of travel speed of the vehicle.

Power-assisted steering system

Growing community of inventors

Toyota, Japan

Koichi Sugihara