The Official Steering Wheel Mod Thread

Lol...gonna try to start this.

I know a lot of you have custom steering wheels (or skins)

Can we all share the "what I bought and how I did it"? With pics too

Trying to decide what to do with Jade's steering wheel. It needs some work. Recover? Rewrap? Or replace with another alltogether?

Chris

There are some nice ones available. To put an aftermarket wheel on the car, you need an adapter. Grant wheels have 5 bolts, the Nardi and MOMO styles have 6 bolts (different patterns), and the LeCarras have 9 bolts. You can get some nice wheels on ebay for less than at the local stores.

The original wheels are about 15 inches in diameter. There is a 15.3 Nardi in the White Elephant, but I actually prefer a 14 inch wheel and have one in the Starship. Some wood wheels have thicker rims than others. It is a personal choice. You could even have the thin ones wrapped with leather, or do it yourself with a kit, if you like a thicker rim. I prefer a black anodized, or dull coated/painted aluminum spoke, but they have chrome and polished aluminum for those who like bling. I also like 3 spoke wheels better than 4 spoke, because the 4 spoke ones look too cluttered. I guess that comes from my background with sports cars. I like the riveted wood rim too, but ended up with smooth laminated rims.

Grant makes their own adapters, and the others are available from different vendors. The NRGs are probably the nicest, but apple289 (on ebay) makes one comparable to the Grant with a dual (Nardi/MOMO) pattern 6 hole adapter. Apple289 also makes a 5/6 hole adapter for Grant and MOMO. The apple289 is cheaper than the Grant as well. Apple289 uses the same 3 bolt base as the Grant, but they make multiple styles/sizes of adapters. I have an NRG, and they are the easiest to install, and the fit is perfect. Apple289 also makes different heigth adapters, and you can use wheels with different dish depths by picking the correct height. The ads for the adapters never state that they will fit the 91-96 B and D bodies, because of liability issues, but if it fits the 90 B body, it will fit the 91-96s.

I used an NRG short adapter, a cheapie ($10) quick release, and a 12mm spacer on the Starship. I can use a flat, or very slight dish wheel with it, and still have a comfortable reach for the trun signal stalk. I modified the quick release with silicone pads inbetween the two parts, instead of the tiny rubber plugs that crushed in about a day. I had to use the spacer on top of the quick release to get enough room for the horn button to sit in the hub. There were no correct length screws available, so I had to cut screws so that they did not stick out of the stacked parts, and interfere with the part below. A Dremel with a cutoff wheel worked great.

If you use a small diameter wheel (13-13 1/2 inch) you can get a short turn signal stalk that will feel more comfortable. I forget what car has them. I picked one up, but never used it.

Installation of the Grant and apple289 require that you remove the tabs on the inside of the steering column bezel that locate the top of the clockspring. You must remove the clockspring to use the aftermarket wheels. The apple289 requires a small modification to fit properly because the hole for the horn connector is drilled about 1/4 inch to far counterclockwise. About 1/2 hour with a Dremel and small side mill will fix it.

When dispense with the airbag, and you want the light to go out, you have to put a 2 ohm 10 watt resistor across the connector under the dash. 2 1 ohm 10 watts in series or 2 4 ohm 10 watts in parallel will work. I got them at Radio Shack. Make sure they do not short to anything.

Installation is pretty straight forward. You can get horn buttons from Grant with many logos on them, and they can be adapted to the Nardi and MOMO wheels with a large plastic washer to fill the gap between the horn button bezel and the opening for the horn in the hub. I made one from a 1/8 inch thick flat piece of dash support from a JY car. I think MOMO makes a blank horn button as well, and it will fit both the MOMO and Nardi wheels. Most of the horn buttons require a ring of metal inside of the hub for the horn retainer spring to hold onto, and to ground the switch in the button. Some of the horn buttons have two leads, and require a separate wire for ground. You can get polished billet horn buttons too.

LeCarra makes their own adapters and horn buttons, because the hub centers are a lot larger than the others.

Thank you guys!

Lorne, that is a beautiful wheel wrap...have you had yours back yet?

lornejay1 wrote:

Sending mine here Chris

http://www.craftcustoms.com/pages/Wheels%20Leather.htm

I have a mint SS wheel that I was going to dye red.

I like the fatter 1a2 in my car now,so I would prefer it redone.

Adding this thread in the mix...

https://gmlongroof.4umer.com/t7522-forever-sharp

I dyed an SS wheel for my 94 Caprice, and have a Lumina Sport wheel in my SS. I have a Weld billet wheel in my 71 Pontiac that matches the wheels. I'll probably do a non-bag three spoke wheel in the WB4.

brokecello wrote:

I know a lot of you have custom steering wheels (or skins)

Can we all share the "what I bought and how I did it"? With pics too

You asked for it...

Not the B-bodys, as I haven't really settled on what to do with those yet, but a couple of aftermarket installations:

Typhoon is a Formuling France wheel, bought still new-in-the-package at the swap meet.

The proper hub was harder to locate, eventually found on eBay. Had to settle for one with a Camaro horn button, though a GMC logo has been purchased and will be in there soon:



The Mustang is equipped with a Momo Benetton wheel (Wiki "Benetton Formula" if you're curious):



And matching shift knob:





Wheel was relatively easy to find, the matching shift knob considerably more difficult, eventually found on eBay Germany. Once the proper Ford hub was sourced, it was then necessary to find a way incorporate the cruise control switches. The stock Mustang buttons are more vertical and didn’t lend themselves to being adapted to the Momo wheel, so a set of the more horizontal cruise control switches from a Taurus were purchased. Then a housing was milled of out of aluminum and black anodized make it blend better with the dark Taurus buttons:



The whole thing started as a joke because the car has all of 90 HP and with the additional burden of an automatic transmission, is every bit as slow as can be imagined – the wheel was chosen as a nod to the Playskool colors and the preschool-friendly complete lack of acceleration. The shift knob was found later and adapted to the Mustang shift selector.

- J

I know some friends who would KILL for that wheel.

I have a buddy with a Harlequin VW who is dying to find one in good shape.

I just sent my steering wheel to Craft Customs based on the info I got here. I am anxious to get her back and see the finished product. My 95 has been in the family since new and when my dad had it he would hang onto the wheel to get in and out. The welds on the steel hoop that makes up the wheel were broken on both sides. I had a wheel cover that I picked up at the auto parts store but after 8 years I have had enough. It should be safer and my inspiration to get the rest of her done!
I will post before and after photos.
Sparky

JaySS wrote:

brokecello wrote:

I know a lot of you have custom steering wheels (or skins)

Can we all share the "what I bought and how I did it"? With pics too

You asked for it...

Not the B-bodys, as I haven't really settled on what to do with those yet, but a couple of aftermarket installations:

Typhoon is a Formuling France wheel, bought still new-in-the-package at the swap meet.

The proper hub was harder to locate, eventually found on eBay. Had to settle for one with a Camaro horn button, though a GMC logo has been purchased and will be in there soon:



The Mustang is equipped with a Momo Benetton wheel (Wiki "Benetton Formula" if you're curious):



And matching shift knob:





Wheel was relatively easy to find, the matching shift knob considerably more difficult, eventually found on eBay Germany. Once the proper Ford hub was sourced, it was then necessary to find a way incorporate the cruise control switches. The stock Mustang buttons are more vertical and didn’t lend themselves to being adapted to the Momo wheel, so a set of the more horizontal cruise control switches from a Taurus were purchased. Then a housing was milled of out of aluminum and black anodized make it blend better with the dark Taurus buttons:



The whole thing started as a joke because the car has all of 90 HP and with the additional burden of an automatic transmission, is every bit as slow as can be imagined – the wheel was chosen as a nod to the Playskool colors and the preschool-friendly complete lack of acceleration. The shift knob was found later and adapted to the Mustang shift selector.

- J

Reminds me of the Andy Warhol BMWs from the Disco era!

I just got my steering wheel back from the Craft Customs. My steering wheel was too far gone so they couldn't refurb so they found one online and got it to redo I just bolted it up and it looks great! This is an expen$ive but perfect repair for something that was as much a safety issue as an improvement to the looks on my ride.
I highly recommend CC
Sparky

Jay does that wheel play Simon too?

Sorry just had to ask, lol.

Sprocket wrote:

Jay does that wheel play Simon too?

LOL I thought the same thing!

To slightly thread jack, does anyone know if the box caprice wheel will fit our column without modification? My *guess* is that it does, but I'm not sure the clockspring for the horn will.

Also, where does the horn ground go (on the wheels with 2 leads)? I did a steering wheel swap for a buddy who has a 91 RMW that had the busted horn pads on the wheel and upgraded to a 98 lesbare wheel (same as 94-96 RMW) and don't know where the ground goes. Both the original wheel and the lesabre wheel had the ground, but I didn't see where either went when I took off the airbags. I need to figure out where the ground goes so I can hook up his horn.

Ground goes to the column, or something metal attached to the column.

Is there a specific spot it goes?

The column itself is bolted to the body, so it does not matter where it is grounded. Hook up the hot side, and try touching a wire to the lead, and the column with the horn button pushed. The horn should sound. You can drill a hole, and put a self tapping screw in it to mount the ground wire.