Patent ID: 8292775

Claim:
A vehicle differential apparatus comprising: a differential case that rotates by drive force from a drive source; a pair of side gears that are rotatably housed in the differential case; a pair of pinions whose gear axes are each orthogonal to gear axes of the side gears, and each of which has at an axial center thereof a first pinion shaft insertion hole, and which mesh with the side gears; and a pinion shaft that is inserted in the first pinion shaft insertion holes of the pinions, and is housed in the differential case, wherein the pinion shaft has a pair of pinion inner peripheral surface-supporting portions that face inner peripheral surfaces of the first pinion shaft insertion holes, and that rotatably support the two pinions, wherein the inner peripheral surface of the first pinion shaft insertion hole of each of the pinions is provided with a pair of sliding surfaces that abut and are slidable on one of the two pinion inner peripheral surface-supporting portions of the pinion shaft, and with a non-contacting surface that is not able to contact the one of the pinion inner peripheral surface-supporting portions, and the sliding surfaces and the non-contacting surface are disposed at positions that are adjacent to each other in an axis direction of the first pinion shaft insertion hole, wherein the differential case has a pair of pinion outer peripheral surface-supporting portions that slidably support outer peripheral surfaces of the two pinions, respectively, wherein the differential case has a pair of second pinion shaft insertion holes into which the pinion shaft is inserted, wherein the pinion shaft is constrained from moving in an axis direction of the pinion shaft, and is disposed, with two end portions of the pinion shaft inserted respectively in the two second pinion shaft insertion holes, and wherein a dimension between the end portion of the pinion shaft and an inner peripheral surface of corresponding one of the second pinion shaft insertion holes is set larger than a dimension between the pinion outer peripheral surface-supporting portion and the outer peripheral surface of corresponding one of the pinions.