Art & Inspiration Steering wheels

Catalyzed urethane base coat/clear coat for everything!!

 

The steering wheel was a major consideration on building my '29 Ford cabriolet. The hub is painted the exterior body color, and I gave the guy who cast the rim an upholstery swatch of the seat fabric, and gave him the shift knob as well to give him a color range. The Wheel is a '38 Stude banjo with a rim that I rolled, about 16".

 

^^^^^^^^ beautiful

 

Here's a pic of the original 57 wheel I rolled a new hoop for and cut down down to 16", then painted it off-white with mother of pearl. This pic is right after I finished up replacing the steering box, last week

 

I like the column to match the wheel and have some of the same somewhere else in the interior. The dash in my Victoria is Peacock and white with the steering wheel/column Peacock. If it was reversed it would be OK too. Back in 50's the metallic green paint on the wheel of our 55 Sunliner wore off, my dad bought a replacement that was solid white plastic. Black and white were the only replacements. If you wanted it original you would paint it.

 

I got this 1940? Pontiac wheel from my cousin, when I found it in his junk the center was missing, and the "horn" buttons which were probably plastic were long gone, the wheel was pretty bad but with JB weld and some paint it looks good to me. I used oak to replace the plastic horn buttons which matches the oak in the instrument panel, not really "period" but a big wheel seems "correct" for an old car, in this case a 38 Chevy. About six months after the wheel was done and being used I was digging through some of my cousins junk in another old car and found the center!!

 

On my '38 Chrysler I have the factory upgrade banjo wheel cut down to 16" and painted roughly the color of the upholstery. Makes me happy just to look at it!

 

I think I like having a wheel that goes with my car but not modify it to match my colors. The stock colors on the wheel are what is part of the wheel appeal, regardless of the time period of the wheel manufacture vs the the time period of my build. Bottom line, the wheel has to appeal to me in what I think will be a bit different but still go with my build.

My present build is a late 50s to early 60s themed car and I am using the following :


I bought this wheel at Spring Carlisle last year and I knew right away that it was the one for my car even though it's time period is a bit later ....

The wheel is green and black but does not "match" the green of my car. I will bend some stainless rod for the chrome pieces that separate the black and green areas, similar to the look of the early 60s Chevy wheels.
The center cap of this Pontiac I "adjusted/modified" more in the V8 motif I like so much - sorry I do not have a pic of it right now but if you expand the first pic you will see the V8 motif in the center cap ....

The steering wheel is the first item you really focus on when looking at an interior - not everyone may agree with your choice, it just has to sit "right" with you ...

 

still working on my 46 convert.. but I will be running this wheel..

Wheel by sawzall posted Apr 17, 2017 at 2:59 AM

 

The wheel in my avatar.

 

I fixed the cracks in mine using the HRP method, PC7 epoxy and a lot of sanding. Primed and sanded some more, fixed the minor glitches with spot putty. Finished off with rattle can Duplicolor.

 

I feel the wheel has to go with the car. A wooden wheel or a wrapped one wouldn't go in a custom as well as they would in a fenderless roadster IMO. I got this wheel from Kevin Lee a few years ago. The grips are held on with corby rivets and I stained it and finished it with tung oil. Don't have a pic of the wheel in the coupe.

 

Is this transparent plastic, or just a really cool paint job? I like it a lot!

Wheel by sawzall posted Apr 17, 2017 at 2:59 AM

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Here is a wheel that is in the car that I just got. The car has not been driven out of the neighborhood since 1962. It has a Cadillac emblem in the middle, but appears to have the original paint on it. It is in a 1939 standard Ford.

 

I have had good luck with rattle can appliance epoxy believe it or not. Rustolium. There is a down side it is not catalyzed so you got to let it cure for a while.

On my wood wheels I stain 'em if they need it then I use Min-Wax finishing paste. Lots of coats and lots of 00 steel wool and patience. But once done it will have a nice sheen and after you use it a while the oil on your skin customizes it. if I am doing a wood shift knob I do the same thing, after a while where your hand rests on the knob gets really dark and shiny.

Blah blah. Sorry for the rabbit trail.

 

[/QUOTE]
its translucent..

 

My '36 3-window is getting this reduced diameter '56 Chevy wheel. Figured it fits the 'pulled a few other parts when I got the engine' style of build. Made up my own stepped down column so's I could run all the stock '56 blinker mechanism and still have the appearance of a chromed early Ford column and '40 drop. I wanted to run an era correct blinker setup (a requirement here in NZ) but also wanted it to be self cancelling.

Wheel is most likely gonna' end up painted 'Nitti' purple to match the dash and exterior, but I may yet get daring and spray it lipstick red to match the leather!

Bear

 

1958 Chevy Impala

Hello,

This is the view I had from 1959 to 1965, from almost sunrise to bedtime at 12 midnight. Those were some impressionable teenage years. There were countless hours spent grabbing on to something that gave me a lot of security driving to and from our destinations. It was my friend through thick and thin. (If it had a built-in recorder, that would be real history.)

Those cruising drives from the local hot spot/ drive in restaurants, to the old drive-in movies, daily to school, friends’ houses, and to the Spring Break cruises were our weekly/annual outings. The red/silver dash provided plenty of time admiring it while listening to our old AM radios.

K-earth 101 post by Finn Jensen:
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...of-what-you-like.132391/page-70#post-12409886

Hanging on for dear life at the drags was a thing in itself. Especially if you were glowing in a win and forgot to start pumping the brakes, while heading for the dirt pile and fence. The feeling you get when involved in the big time street races just made driving the Impala worthwhile.

Since I was the only one in our group that had a red interior with a black car, that in itself, made it all the more, special. The car stood out. The design, the look, the color, they all added up to enjoying that view out of the front window driving for miles and miles. The dash wasn’t padded, but a shiny red that made the red steering wheel stand out.

Jnaki

I was very sad to see it go in 1965. I needed something else to get me through the long drive to college and back. But, the red interior and wheel was replaced with this one: 1965 red El Camino that I used for 125,000 miles of fun driving until 1974. There was/is something going on with the color red.

 

I got a COP Speedo on my Shovelhead. The missus picked it up new in the box on Amazon of all places. It actually kept me from being harassed the first year I ran it over Labor Day weekend. I had a Hypo follow me into a gas station and say, "Do you know how fast you were going out on the highway?" I said, "64 most of the time but I got up to about 68 when I was passing a tractor." Then he looked down at my speedo and said, "Oh well I guess you know." And thanked me for my time and walked off.

Back t steering wheels, I have changed projects but this home made wheel is perfect and it has 2 things going for it that really land it in my ball park, it is a flat wheel and is wood.

 

My 5 window wheel. HRP

 

Back in '14 I found one of these Deluxe Chevy "spinner" wheels. All the plastic and hub parts were gone but the grip moved smoothly in it's ball bearing race. A bit of luck was that the splines of the '46 Chevy truck column I have in my '37 Chevy pickup were the same as the passenger car wheel. I wrapped the wheel with gum rubber vacuum tubing and covered that with a leather wheelskin. Hub trim was fabbed from aluminum stock, a Buick cowl lamp trim ring and an 1887 Morgan Silver Dollar inherited from my grandparents. Horn functions were relocated to a dashboard button.

 

I saw one of those in an Olds a couple of years back, the guy let me give it a whirl in the parking lot. Those are the chit.

 

I always liked the two toned wheels that match the interior.

 

No good pics of the steering wheel but the really nice '40 Ford coupe I bought a few years back has what appears to be a custom wheel because of the center hub not being at all like an old Ford with a tapered shaft and key, but rather a large hole to fit over the hub retaining hole and a small bolt pattern surrounding it. It's styled like a stock '40 wheel, but of a smaller diameter, maybe 16" or so. Not here at home and I can't go get pic or measure right now. Wheel is painted to match the sort of ivory color predominant in the interior.
Last year a crack appeared in the rim of the wheel and has spread to a gap of about .125" Close examination reveals hairline cracks appearing elsewhere on the rim.
Going to have to figger either a way to effect a permanent repair/repaint, or a replace/repaint. Inclined towards replace/repaint so that I won't lose the use of the car while I repair/repaint. Also entering in the evaluation is the other, visible, hairline cracks.
Meantime to cover up the crack and continue use for awhile, I'm considering installing a "suicide knob" spinner wheel that was a gift some time back from a friend.
Thoughts?

 

Steve
Now thats just showing off that is......

 

Still love my little old FatMan wheel

 

For me, the steering wheel has to match the era and feel of the car. On the '35 Chevy, I wanted an early 60's feel to the car. I actually started with one of the new Moon steering wheels as my inspiration, and built around that. Future plans call for a black tuck and roll interior to finish off the theme. For the RPU project, I am going with an early-mid 50's build style. I found this two tone wheel in a friend's parts stash. He was on the fence about using it in his Deuce sedan build, but I talked him out of it instead. Has some gold metal flake in the black areas, and I plan to paint the Olds engine factory gold, and do the interior in a black and white (or cream) pattern.

 

I like the wheel to compliment the car, year of the wheel doesn’t have to match year of car but does have to enhance the interior. I also favor white as a color.


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In my Coupe, a lot of the parts for the build came from a 56 Chevy. Including the steering wheel.


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In my 38 Chevy, the original owner used a mid 50’s Chevrolet Steering wheel. I first got to check it out at 12/13 years old.


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