CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application is based on, and claims priority from Japanese Patent Application No. 2019-136967, filed Jul. 25, 2019, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

BACKGROUND

1. Technical Field

The present invention relates to a steering column device.

2. Description of the Related Art

A steering column device according to Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2011-6056 includes: a vehicle-body attachment bracket configured to be fixed to a vehicle body and having a pair of sidewall portions; and an outer jacket arranged between the pair of sidewall portions along a vehicle front-rear direction. In addition, the steering column device includes: an inner jacket inserted in the outer jacket to be movable in a tube-axial direction; and a distance bracket having long holes open along the vehicle front-rear direction and attached to the outer jacket. A slit having an open end on one side in the vehicle front-rear direction is formed in the outer jacket, and the long holes open along the vehicle front-rear direction are formed in the distance bracket, which is attached to the outer jacket.

SUMMARY

In the above steering column device, the distance bracket has a left-right divided structure and the outer jacket was reduced in diameter by a bolt-axial force to fix the inner jacket to the outer jacket. In the steering column device having such a structure, the positional relation between the bolt and the open end of the slit changes depending on the positions of the long holes, and thus the jacket tightening rigidity changes depending on the positions of the long holes. For this reason, the lever operating force and the position fixing force (the telescopic position fixing force, the tilt position fixing force) in the steering column device are unlikely to be stabilized.

In view of this, an object of the present invention is to stabilize the lever operating force and the position fixing force in a steering column device regardless of the positions of long holes.

A steering column device according to one aspect of the present invention includes: a vehicle-body attachment bracket configured to be fixed to a vehicle body and having a pair of sidewall portions; an outer jacket arranged between the pair of sidewall portions along a vehicle front-rear direction; an inner jacket inserted in the outer jacket to be movable in a tube-axial direction; and a distance bracket having a long hole open along the vehicle front-rear direction and attached to the outer jacket. The outer jacket has a slit having an open end on one side in the vehicle front-rear direction. The distance bracket has a slit having an open end on an opposite side in the vehicle front-rear direction, and is arranged such that the slit of the distance bracket is set over the slit of the outer jacket in a tube radial direction.

According to the steering column device of the one aspect of the present invention, it is possible to stabilize the lever operating force and the position fixing force in a steering column device regardless of the position of long holes.

