[Healeys] Steering wheel restoration

Curtis Arndt cnaarndt at gmail.com
Mon Feb 15 19:32:26 MST 2016


Hi All

I have to agree with John Spaur and Michael Salter that restoring an
original wheel is hit and miss at best.  It is so difficult that both Roger
Moment and Don Fisher recast their wheels on the original frames versus
trying to repair/restore them.  Don is not only a dentist but has taught at
the UCLA dental school for over 50 years, so casting the wheel was not
difficult for him.  The same with Roger whose fabrication skills are second
to none and his recast wheel was nothing short of brilliant.  BTW Roger
initially repaired his wheel and it cracked again in short order which is
why he re-cast it.

Also as the trafficator/Bakelite expert I can state the the steering wheels
were NOT Bakelite but plastic.  See attached photos of my restored '55 BN1
wheel that never had any cracks whatsoever.  I just lightly sanded and
polished the rim and painted the hub with a high quality epoxy enamel.

Better yet, buy a correct period wooden wheel from Michael Lempert as I
also have one of his wheels for my car.

Cheers,

Curt Arndt
Carlsbad, CA
'55 BN1, '60 AN5 :{)

On Mon, Feb 15, 2016 at 3:27 PM, Michael Salter <michaelsalter at gmail.com>
wrote:

> "I would not recommend restoring the original plastic steering wheels when
> excellent reproductions are available."
> I would have to concur with John on that. However, if you are looking to
> restore a very early 100 wheel, either adjustable or non adjustable  17"
> diameter or a 16 1/2" non adjustable wheel they are unavailable in
> reproductions so extreme measures are called for!!!
> The last wheel that I restored using the acetone method, suggested to me
> by Bob Yule BTW, was on #174 andthe result was good enough to score
> concours gold at Gettysburg and shows no signs of cracking  3 years after I
> finished restoring it.
> I believe that the real problem is that the plastic used to make these
> wheels originally tends to shrink over time and eventually cracks appear to
> relieve the resulting tensile stress.
> In my experience any filler material, other than the original, fails to
> bond strongly and as a result cracks appear at the material boundaries very
> quickly.
>
> Just sayin'
>
> Michael S
>
> On Mon, Feb 15, 2016 at 5:03 PM, John Spaur <jmsdarch at sbcglobal.net>
> wrote:
>
>> I would not recommend restoring the original plastic steering wheels when
>> excellent reproductions are available.
>>
>> The reason the plastic has cracked is because water has penetrated the
>> wheel
>> and it has started to oxidize the metal reinforcement which has expanded
>> and
>> cracked the wheel. That process may of slowed down, but it will never
>> stop.
>>
>> I stored an original wheel in my garage for several years intending to
>> restore it. It appeared to be in the same reasonable shape when I went to
>> inspect it in preparation for restoration. When I pull at parts of it that
>> looked to be in good shape, it  just crumbled in my hands.
>>
>> John Spaur
>> '62 BT7
>>
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>
>
> --
> *If you can't fix it with a hammer, you've got an electrical problem.*
>
>
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