How to repair chiped/cracked steering wheel (& pics)

[Doris]

Hi fellow Early Bayers! following on from a thread I posted some time ago on here, I decided to refurbish my steering wheel as it had the all to common cracks around the horn push.At the thought of £99 for a repo one from JK and the recent incident of the seller on Ebay selling steering wheels that don't fit any thing - I thought this is the way forward!I won't cover emoval of steering wheel as thats easily covered else where.Also you may see I've left the steering wheel cover on and not re painted the whole wheel, this is because the leather lace up cover has been on the bus since about 1970 so I think it should stay in place, it would never go back right again!

It takes a bit of patience & a little time - but the result is worth it - see what you think..........

I decided to use Epoxy resin to repair the damage, it it tough,shapable and cheap enough to buy.I happened to use 'Milliput' common amongst modellers. less than £3 from Ebay. like plastacine before it sets,rock hard when set...

The offending article....

First I cleaned the damaged area of grease, dust etc and removed any obviously loose pieces. It was then simply a case of shoving the milliput into the gaps and roughly shaping it. I used a plastic lid to help shape it, but didn't bother after long as it was quite easy to control the putty.

Once set, I roughly shaped it, then found a few areas that needed another filling, so re applied the putty, once again shaping it roughly with a dremel. If you don't have a dremel type thing, good old wet and dry will do the trick, it'll just take a bit longer!

After getting it roughly right I then changed to wet and dry paper, starting at medium, working up to 1200 and 1500 grit paper to get the corect contour and blending the milliput with the original plastic....

I used a wet and dry paper wrapped around a kitchen knife to get the top of the repair level with the original...

when I was happy with th e blend and shape of the repair, I used filler primer to cover the area. this highlighted a few area that needed a bit more attention. after which more filler primer until the repair was more or less invisible.....

Then a final gentle rub with 1500 paper and the top coat. the nearest I found was satin black, but I'm sure with use, the black will be polished my my hand action on the wheel.......

The finished result refitted......BEFORE & AFTER.............

 

[easy]

Nicely done!! A quality repair and a worthy bookmark fo all restorers out there. 8) Ace! 8)

 

[Doris]

Thanks bud - glad to be of use!

 

[easy]

Thanks bud - glad to be of use!

Credit to you, this sort of post is exactly what earlybay is all about.

 

[the irv]

thats excellent,really good repair .

 

[slammedresto]

nice " how to " and a great result too :mrgreen:

 

[rob]

excellent job there 8)

 

[uber cool]

well done, good write up. That's another job I need to do :mrgreen:

 

[Tofufi]

Ace

The one in my van looks very much like your 'before' picture.

I might practise on my van one in preparation for my bug one which needs a few small cracks filling. 8)

 

[Guest]

Stickied :wink:

 

[Cker5]

Thank you for this, I've been building the courage to restore mine. I almost bought a half-ass restored one a month back.

I know I can do this now :wink:

What kind black of paint did you use?

 

[Doris]

Thank you for this, I've been building the courage to restore mine. I almost bought a half-ass restored one a month back.

I know I can do this now :wink:

What kind black of paint did you use?

Thanks - no worries,we all appreciate help with things. I used regular auto spray paint in rattle cans, filler primer, standard grey primer and Satin Black top coat. just take your time and don't expect one coat of milliput or primer to get it perfect, build up to a perfect finish.

 

[andy11]

Hey spot on, must have a go at that, my wheel is 10 times worse though I nearly wrecked it trying to get it off but should be possible with a bit of patience, would not have thought of that.

 

[retro.james]

That's cool - and you have a pm Doris

 

[sambadeluxe]

Well done - i also need to do this and have had probs finding a reasonable spare- thanks for the info!

Ben :wink:

 

[Hebster52]

Excellent! It seems that I have to do the same thing as it seems difficult to find a good replacement wheel.... :|

 

[Tofufi]

I decided to finally give this a go today.

I hit a snag when I found I couldn't remove my steering wheel :evil:

I've tried to do it in situ now... so we'll see how it ends up looking :lol:

It doesn't solve the fact my steering wheel points approximately 70 degrees out of line when driving along though

 

[Doris]

try giving it some persuasion with a rubber mallet. place a sponge between the wheel and the mallet and give it a wallop as near to the centre as possible.

 

[Tofufi]

Tried that!

The whole column started moving upwards... so I don't think that'll do it :shock:

I'll have to crawl under there and check I've not broken anything :lol:

Thanks for the hint though . I've even tried boiling water to help it on its way, but that had no effect either.

 

[Tofufi]

I'm still waiting for the stuff on mine to dry, but here is the horn push.

Before...

And after

doesn't show it too well really.

Not too bad for 30 mins work, I don't think.