[Healeys] Steering wheel repair

[josef-eckert at t-online.de]

Hi Michael,

I don't know what material was used for the steering wheels back then, but 
I've learned that different materials were used for the Bluemel steering 
wheels over the production run of our Healeys. The material used in the AH 
100 steering wheels is much easier to repair than that used in steering 
wheels from the 1960s. I've repaired steering wheels for a Daimler SP250, 
and it was very difficult. The cracks kept reappearing. I don't use JB WELD 
here, but on the advice of a steering wheel restorer, I use PC-7 epoxy. 
This works wonderfully on AH 100 steering wheels. But even with this, it's 
very difficult to permanently repair some of the later AH 3000 steering 
wheels.

Hope this helps a bit.

 

Josef Eckert

Königswinter/Germany

 

 

 

 

-----Original-Nachricht-----

Betreff: [Healeys] Steering wheel repair

Datum: 2026-04-09T00:44:19+0200

Von: "Michael Salter" <michaelsalter at gmail.com>

An: "healeys at autox.team.net" <healeys at autox.team.net>

 

 

 

Many years ago, I repaired the large cracks in the original steering wheel 
of my Phase 1 BJ8 by grinding them out with a Dremel and filling the cracks 
with JB weld. After sanding and repainting with epoxy gloss black it looked 
great however, after a few years, more cracks appeared at the interface of 
the JB Weld and the original plastic from which the rim was molded. Back 
then I replaced the original wheel with a shiny new Motolita wood-rim 
wheel, with which I was never completely happy, and all was good, sort of.

I am now faced with having to do the same type of repair on the original 
wheel from the BN2 which I am currently restoring.

Before starting with the JB Weld process again I thought I should do a 
little research to see if I could find a filler material which would form a 
stronger bond with the plastic rim material.

Gemini told me that the rim was made of Bakelite but I was not convinced. 
Bakelite is a “thermoset” plastic which, when heated, does not melt. A 
simple experiment quickly proved that the rim plastic was a thermo-plastic 
material because it easily melted and could be deformed when heated and 
again unlike Bakelite it dissolved in acetone.

I have done some Googling and it seems that it’s very likely that the 
plastic used for molding the rims was Tenite™ cellulose acetate.

Does anyone know for sure what the original steering wheel rims were made 
from?

 


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://autox.team.net/pipermail/healeys/attachments/20260409/1d8c1767/attachment.htm>