Toyoda Gosei Co., Ltd.

Other

Mitsui Chemicals, Inc.

Toyada Gosei Co., Ltd.

Tooru Koyama

Atsushi Nagata

Tadashi Yamamoto

Akio Hosoi

Mikine Hayashi

Katsunobu Sakane

Masayasu Sahara

Minoru Hashimoto

Junji Koizumi

Akira Uchiyama

Yoshiyuki Fujita

Tetsushi Hiramitsu

Kenji Mori

Yuichi Itoh

Norio Umemura

Osamu Hirose

Yoshio Yamazaki

Minoru Niwa

Sadao Uchida

Tsugunori Sugiura

Kazutoshi Hayashi

Ichizou Shiga

Motoshi Matsuura

Katsumi Sakakida

Koji Shiraki

Tsuneki Wakamatsu

Shinichi Imazu

Kimio Jyougan

Takashi Usugi

A steering wheel including a core metal of a ring portion also includes a soft portion and a hard portion for covering circumferential portions of the core metal. Leather is disposed on a surface of the soft portion and overlaps edges of the hard portion. Extended portions extending from the soft portion surround the core metal and are covered by the hard portion. In this manner, a user of the steering wheel may experience comfort in the feel of the leather on the soft portion as well as an aesthetically appealing hard portion.

Steering wheel

A steering wheel incorporates a hard portion bonded to the overall circumference in the cross-sectional circumferential direction of a ring portion and a soft portion molded to cover the core metal of the ring portion. The hard portion and the soft portion can be formed around the core metal of the ring portion by collective injection molding. A coating layer can be provided for the surface of the hard portion, and leather can be bonded to the surface of the soft portion.

This steering wheel includes a ring portion to be gripped during steering, a core, a core coating layer coating the core and having a surface, and a decorative layer arranged at one or more surface portions of the core coating layer. The decorative layer has a printed layer and a transparent protective coating layer protecting the printed layer. The steering wheel is made by a process in which the core coating layer is molded around the ring portion in a mold, the printed layer is formed on the surface portions of the core coating layer by hydraulic transfer, and the protective coating layer is formed by applying a coating agent to a surface of the printed layer.

Process of manufacturing a steering wheel

This steering wheel includes a ring portion to be gripped during steering, a core having at least one ridge, and a core coating layer coating the core. The core coating layer has a relatively hard portion formed of a first synthetic resin and a relatively soft portion formed of a second synthetic resin arranged in the circumferential direction relative to each other. The relatively hard portion is harder than the relatively soft portion. The ridge is positioned along the core so as to be covered by the relatively hard portion.

A steering wheel includes a ring portion to be gripped during steering. The ring portion includes a core, a core coating layer coating the core, and a decorative layer arranged at a portion of the surface of the core coating layer. The decorative layer has a printed layer and a transparent protective coating layer. The printed layer is formed by hydraulic transfer and is arranged to cover surface portions of the core coating layer. The transparent protective coating layer covers the surface of the printed layer so as to protect the printed layer. The ring portion further includes a skin arranged at the remaining surface portions of the surface of the core coating layer and a level difference portion for folding therein the end portions of the skin arranged between the portion and the remainder of the surface of the core coating layer. The smooth decorative layer can be easily formed on the surface of the ring portion in this manner.

A steering wheel is provided with a steering wheel body, a boss core and an air bag device held by the boss core. The steering wheel body includes a core portion having a ring core and spoke cores and a cover portion covering the core portion. The cover portion includes a core cover layer covering the ring core and the spoke cores and a ceiling cover layer continuously formed with the core cover layer covering the center of the steering wheel. The boss core holds an air bag device between the boss core and the ceiling cover layer. The boss core also has a connection part that allows a steering shaft to be connected from underneath the steering wheel.

A steering wheel body has covering materials for covering a ring core and spoke cores and a pad member integrally formed with the covering materials. An adaptor is fitted to the tip of a steering shaft, the adaptor having an inside serration engaging with the serration of the steering shaft and an outside serration engaging with the serration of a boss member. Moreover, the boss member of a boss plate is provided with a through-hole extending in a direction perpendicular to the axial direction of the steering shaft. A bolt for fastening the adaptor of the steering shaft is screwed into the through-hole.

Steering wheel mounting assembly

Steering wheel for motor vehicles

An attaching system for a steering wheel assembly including a ring portion, a plurality of spokes, as well as integrally formed ring and spoke covering layers, and a pad portion. A steering shaft is formed at its distal end with external screw threads, a portion of which project beyond the upper surface of a boss plate. A nut includes a wheel gear having a plurality of teeth that are engagable with screw threads as a fastening tool. The nut is screwed onto or off from the steering shaft by the fastening tool that engages and rotates the nut, relative to steering shaft.

Steering wheel assembly

An air bag equipped steering wheel that absorbs impact energy of a forward impact, even if applied to the rear side of a ring portion thereof. The steering wheel comprises core bars for connecting its ring portion, boss portion and spoke portions to each other. The spoke portions are composed of two front spoke portions arranged at the right and left of the front side, and a rear spoke portion arranged at the rear side. The air bag unit is securely mounted on the core bars of the front spoke portions and the rear spoke portion. Twistable torsional portions are formed at the core bars of the front spoke portions at positions closer to the core bar of the ring portion than the mounting portion for the air bag unit. A first deformable bent portion is formed at the core bar of the rear spoke portion at the side closer to the boss core bar than the mounting portion for the air bag unit. A second bendable bent portion is formed at the core bar of the ring portion than the mounting portion of the air bag unit and the column cover. The first bent portion is given a lower bending rigidity than the second bent portion.

Steering wheel with air bag unit

A steering wheel assembly having a slidably mounted locking system of the boss plate to connect the steering wheel onto a steering shaft. The lock system comprises a fixing device slidably mounted on an upper surface of a boss plate. The fixing device includes an inwardly directed, tapered tongue or flange that when slid will engage and interact with the steering shaft. When the boss plate is mounted on the steering shaft provided about the circumference of a nut mounted on the steering shaft, the fixing device can then be moved with a screw bolt thereby interlocking the locking tongue or flange in the groove thereby locking the steering wheel on the steering shaft.

An air bag device comprises at the center a bag provided with a gas flowing orifice, a pad for receiving the bag in its folded state, an inflator arranged so as to permit gas to be jetted toward the gas flowing orifice of the bag and an inflator insertion hole into which a holding cylinder below the inflator can be inserted and further provided with a retainer for holding the inflator and the bag in their inner periphery and the pad in its outer periphery. The air bag device further includes a holding cloth surrounding the lower holding cylinder of the inflator and formed continuously below the gas flowing orifice of the bag, and a coupling is formed between the peripheral surface of the inflator and peripheral edge of the inflator insertion hole of the retainer.

Air bag device with air bag and inflation mounting structure

A steering wheel core metal unit comprising a boss section, a boss/spoke connecting section, spoke sections and a ring section integrally die-cast, with the boss section serving as an insert. Before trimming and after being released from a die caster, the boss/spoke connecting section of the core metal unit is provided with a gate section and the ring section comprises a pair of inside and outside ribs. Overflow sections are provided along the outer periphery of the ring section at substantially the intermediate positions among the spoke sections, respectively. The sectional area of the outside rib is made larger than that of the inside rib so that a final molten metal merging portion comes to lie at the outer periphery of the ring section. Accordingly, even when the molten metal moves in the cavity of the die caster as it entrains air, the air can escape from the overflow sections and no blowhole is formed in the core metal as a die cast product.

Steering wheel core metal unit

A steering wheel assembly in which a main body is slidably connected to a boss for connecting the steering wheel onto a steering shaft. The steering wheel main body has a connecting plate with a pair of tapered guide rails that will slidably receive a hooking portion therein. When the hooking portion is inserted into the guide rails, the position of the steering wheel main body is defined at a desired position relative to the shaft.

A steering wheel body includes a ring core, a plurality of spoke cores extending from the ring core, a surface layer that covers the ring core and the spoke cores, and a pad which is located at the center of the ring core and formed continuously from the surface layer. A mounting member attached to the wheel body is constituted by either an insert embedded in the insert, an air bag mechanism accommodated in the insert, or a boss plate connecting the wheel body to a steering shaft. Adjacent spoke cores are connected to each other by connectors. The mounting member is attached to the connectors.

Growing community of inventors

Aichi-ken, Japan

Tooru Koyama