How do you get the bloody steering wheel off

[Mr Bean]

Help!!!! need to remove the steering wheel indicator column bracket broke and ign barrel think it's had a few attempts at people stealing it. Tried penetrating oil and rubber mallet but it won't budge

 

[Bluesnailman]

A giant U shaped washer placed behind the wheel and a three arm puller do the job for me. With the wheel being a press-fit my experience with the mallet was just as unsuccessful. I bought my U shaped washer from one of the vw outlets. Others with access to thick steel and cutting equipment have made their own.

 

[Webbaldo]

You can buy a cheap C shaped washer off ebay and use a puller

Don't try and bray it off and you can easily crack the plastic around the boss.

 

[gvee]

It's a bugger, isn't it!

I bought a pair of the aforementioned C-shaped washers from a well known VW supplier.
They did the job... but they buckled whilst doing it!
Luckily the steering wheel came out completely unharmed.

Oh... I also centre-punched the top of a bolt and put that in the column as my puller wanted to squeeze in to the column centre.

I have tried various methods in the past, including heat (boiling water) and penetrating fluid, etc., etc. but sadly brute force (applied tactically) was the only option on both my vans.

 

[Bobster]

I used hot water on mine. Took some doing but I got it off.

Also don’t remove the nut completely when you’re trying to get it off as if you do and it comes loose you could loose your teeth

 

[sparkywig]

You don't need to do any of that mucking about.
Just get a simple steering wheel tool from that nice chap Neil at LiteSteer.
Undo and remove the nut, place tool in top of column with the horn cable in the slot, give the tool a whack or two with a lump hammer and the wheel pops off.

 

[lemur]

I was all ready for the troubles, having read such..
...but literally just sat in the drivers seat with my palms upturned on top of my knees then BAM whacked both hands/arms skywards a few times and off she came!
( :!: careful not to knock your f**king teeth out)

 

[Mr Bean]

Thanks guys for the replies lemur will try your suggestion tomorrow but just in case of failure have ordered a set of pullers should be here Saturday, then I just have to figure out how to remove the top fixing bracket as I need to renew the ign barrel!! Oh and solder one of the connections on the indicator stalk. The steering wheel is scrap anyway but haven't resorted to big lump hammer as frightened to do damage to column. Van is SA import which will explain allot

 

[Mr Bean]

Success!!! Of a kind the wheel is off, pullers came this morning waste of money there was no way they were going to shift it, so resorted to lump hammer still wouldn't go spent next 10mins running up and down the street screaming and shouting mostly swear words #####!! Then remembered that I had bought a gas soldering iron from Aldi luckily it had gas in it heated it up for about five mins two taps with the rubber mallet and it fell off, screws on the cancelling ring were damaged so it had been butchered in SA as I thought it had,just need to figure out how to get the ign housing off the column and rebuild the ign and solder some wires back on indicators, that's my next post!!! All the joys of early bay ownership. Thanks again guys

 

[Moseley]

Might be worth checking the condition of the steering rubber for anyone who has used brute force / mallets to remove their steering wheel. It is possibly to stretch or tear them, particularly if they weren’t in A1 nick in the first place, as all the force is being taken through the coupling.

Definitely a better method to use a puller, but that isn’t always the easiest of the wheel has been overtightened on it’s taper.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Mr Bean]

Thanks for the heads up Moseley will check tomorrow celebrating my success with a glass of wine well second bottle just started really!!!

 

[hobbo]

With pullers you have to put quite a bit of tension on them, take off socket or spanner and then whack the end of the puller, that normally does the trick.

 

[Tofufi]

I used a puller to remove the steering wheel on my Morris Minor (same spline concept) earlier.

Worked fine. I just used a big (32mm iirc) spanner to spread the load around the back (underneath) of the steering wheel and no damage was done

I removed the wheel on my Bay the same way a while ago, but without the spanner to spread the load, and damaged the plastic covering :msn4:

 

[Mr Bean]

Well managed to get the soldering done to the indicators and can't see any damage to the rubbers(phew!!) now need to see if I can get a day on the ign barrel tomorrow