Steering device and movement converting device used therefor

Abstract

Provided is a novel steering device which can be formed to be compact, which is easily applicable to a vehicle with a small engine room such as a front-engine/front-drive car, and which is of neither the ball nut type nor the rack and pinion type. The steering device operates steerable wheels by converting rotation of a steering shaft to axial movement of a relay rod, the steering device including: a gear casing through which the relay rod is passed; a spiral ball rolling groove provided in the relay rod within the gear casing so as to exhibit a lead of a magnitude of 1 or more; a nut member threadedly engaged with the ball rolling groove of the relay rod through an intermediation of a large number of balls and supported rotatably with respect to the gear casing; an input shaft to which rotation of the steering shaft is transmitted and which is in an intersecting or offset relationship with the relay rod; and a first transmission gear for transmitting rotation of the input shaft to the nut member.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.