TOPIC: STEERING WHEEL RESTORATION??

Friends,

IF you were going to have a 1950s steering wheel restored, WHO would you use?
(The original steering wheel on my "new to me" 1956 Cadillac Utility Runabout is cracked, with some pieces of the plastic missing.)
OR
Would you try to restore the wheel yourself?
AND
Does anyone KNOW who supplied the steering wheel to Cadillac Marine & Boatworks in the mid-1950s.

yours, satx

I'm currently restoring a 50s attwood steering wheel. Its pretty cracked up as well. I'm using the same epoxy i used to fix the cracks in my boat to repair the steering wheel, I don't see why it wouldn't work just as well. Its all getting painted anyway.

NJTriton,

THANKS for your response. - The reason that I'm "not real excited" about "patching"/re-painting the wheel with epoxy is that I suspect that once patched/painted that it will go on cracking/falling apart in a different place(s).

yours, satx

satx,

It can be a tough call on restoring these old wheels. We use a Dremmel to open the cracks up to about 1/8" and use some really nasty black 2 part epoxy as a filler. It dries hard as a rock. We finish the wheels in Imron polyurethane. I'm fairly certain it's not going to re-crack where we repair, but new cracks ???

Larry
Vintage Boatworks

Larry,

Precisely what I'm afraid of.

yours, satx

Por 15 has an online steering wheel tutorial, and I bet you can find quite a few videos on youtube or elsewhere online. Por15's pushing their repair kit, but I suspect you could use any 2part epoxy stick to make the repairs. Like many things it's largely based on prep.

I've resorted to buying decent wheels on ebay that aren't complete wrecks, particularly damage that's gotten all the way to the core steel hoop. Once it starts to rust & swell, it's going to be a much more difficult repair that, IMO, is much more likely to have failures down the road.

Nice looking wheels Larry. Great work

well.,,,steering wheels or any other vintage plastic parts can have cracks do to shrinkage....or just plain rot...shrinkage can be repaired with repair systems that have some give to them....if it took 20 years in the sun to crack...modern repairs and better storage should help...rot with chunks coming off probably not so much...thing is to know the difference...john

redfishpirates; jbcurt00; All,

This wheel on the Cadillac tinny is BAD, with places where the iron is showing & the iron is very RUSTY.

Do any of you KNOW whose wheels that Cadillac Marine & Boatworks bought?

yours, satx

pics would be nice

redfishpirates,

TRUE. IF one had the boat nearby, owned a camera, knew how to use it and moreover how to post photos to "the worldwidewierd".
(Sadly, I must tell you that I have none of those.)

yours, satx

sounds like where I was back in 2001 when we bought our first red fish....learnd how to kinda use a computer on this web site....sorry if I offened...john