> >Can anyone help?
> >There doesn't seem to be a place to put a wheel puller.
> >Shop manual says to use special tool #xxxxx.
> >Aside from brute force, what can I do without this tool?
> >Any suggestion would be appreciated.
>
Brute force is the answer, but it must be applied with the right vector.
> First thing I tried was what the '77 shop manual suggests; putting my
> arms behind the wheel and pulling forward sharply to pull the wheel off.
> After deciding I'd bruised my arms enough the wheel hadn't budged. So I
> tried heating it with a small butane torch (smell the plastic burn!) and
> still it would not seperate.
This will work if the nut was carefully torqued to factory specs. Alas, these
overly cost-reduced switches fail quite often, and so the steering wheel has
been off a few times before, and usually put back on with a large impact.
> Next I bought a two-jaw puller. I put some scrap metal behind the spokes of
> the wheel and the center pin of the puller on the steering wheel shaft
Nope. This method requires a vast amount of force, which must be applied
at the center of the shaft. In the case of these B's, the puller doesn't
fit right, and all you'll do (as you found out) is bend the wheel or shaft.
> Next I tried a suggestion from a fellow at a parts store. He said that
> there is always a little in/out play in the wheel so have one person pull
> hard on the wheel and another bang on the center shaft with a piece of
> metal and a hammer (leaving the nut on in case the threads get munged).
Scary, and I'd be real worried about the threaded end, but it will sometimes
work. It requires the same amount of force build-up as the puller above. This
way you can get the force normal to the shaft, but the rate of force build-up
can cause permenant deformation of the parts.
> He suggested I call another place that works a lot on MG's and from
> them I "learned" that MGB steering wheels are very hard to get off.
> He removes the shaft and wheel from the car and then bangs on them with
> a hammer till they seperate, often munging the end bad enough that it
> needs to be rethreaded.
In a word, bulls**t! I've never encountered a late model B that the wheel
would not come off. Your's may be hard, or impossible, to get off. But it
is the exception.
The problem is very much like seperating a balljoint, or tierod end, or
any other taper seat. The most obvious first impression is to "drive"
the center taper out of the socket. It won't work with a hammer, and a
puller gets away with it only because it builds up a force of many tons
slowly. The most sucessful approach is to elasticly distort the socket enough
to allow the taper to pop. This came be done by hitting the socket on the
side with a hammer (room and material type permitting), or to twist the
socket on an axis 90 degrees to the taper, in an attempt to "oval" the
socket. The following method relies on the later.
Remove the center cap and nut. I give the wheel a few quick tugs at this
point in the off chance it will pop right off (30-40% do). You may omit this
step. :> Turn the wheel to the straight ahead position. Make yourself
comfortable in the seat, and firmly grasp the wheel at the spokes (3 and 9,
roughly). Now, you want to attempt to twist the wheel about a vertical axis
that passes through the center of the hub. Pull hard on the left while
pushing equally hard on the right. Then reverse the force directions. Back
and forth, back and forth, changing direction every 1 or 2 seconds. You
might want to tug straight out every so often also. Typically it only takes
two or three cycles for the wheel to pop off, though your milage may vary
considerably.
It does appear from the barbaric brute force previously attempted that your
car may tarnish this method's "never failed" stature. Let me know how it
turns out. :>
Oh, as a note to others, late B's have really strong steering wheels. Do
not attempt this method on, say, a Healey 3000. But then, a 3000 wheel
has bolt holes for using a proper puller.
> It might actually be easier to pull the wheel and shaft and slip the
> switch off the other end, if that's possible.
Nope, the switch goes off of the steering wheel end on the column, only.
Randy
randy@taylor.wyvern.com
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