CPO Dave's restoration thread. (Ser#14690)

[Don Cavey]

Dave, you have a lot of good wheel to start with. Mine was painted red (must have gone to a fire company) and I just wiped it down several times with alcohol. Eventually all of the red blistered up and it didn't touch the original OD from the factory.

Lookn' good my friend!

[David Zelinski]

Newport News, Va.
26 November 2015

Hi everyone! Hope everyone is having a wonderful Thanksgiving Dinner today.

Recent progress for ya alls enjoyment. Many thanks to Don Cavey for kicking me in the butt and getting me to do my steering wheel restoration myself.

It's slow work but coming coming out good I think. I will say that the smell of the old hard rubber when sanding and using a Dremel tool is absolutely hideous. It rates up there with pure 90 weight gear oil to me. The smell seems to permeate the skin and hair too. I'd highly recommend wearing a respirator if you are going to tackle this job and leaving your work clothes well away from other things.

As for the actual restoration work, It's not hard at all. A lot of slow hand sanding to keep from disturbing the original curves and radius's seems to be the hardest part. Just put on some good music (old classic 1960s-1970s country for me) relax and sand.... and yes since I have nothing but time while waiting on everything else, I'm going after every possible little stress crack and repairing.

Take care everyone and be safe!

73-
W4CPO
Dave-

[Don Cavey]

Very good, that's the way to do it. I takes a few days, and you can't hurry it. But the results are fine. If your truck spends most of its time indoors now, not out in the sun, you should not see any more shrinking. My steering wheel still looks as good as when I finished. None of the cracks have opened back up. I am happy.

Thanks for sharing the pictures.

[md1970]

if your going to do power steering the jb weld will hold up but with no power it wont last long

[Don Cavey]

if your going to do power steering the jb weld will hold up but with no power it wont last long

That has certainly not been my experience. My truck was "converted" back to NOS manual steering and the wheel has no cracks whatsoever in it. JB Weld is amazing stuff. I fixed the water jacket in the head of my friend's 50 HP Mercury outboard when it had corroded through. That was 9 years ago.

[k8icu]

Another product that can be used on steering wheels and is what some of the so called "professional" restoration places use is a product called PC7. It's like JB Weld, but stronger. Good stuff to use.

[David Zelinski]

Newport News, Va.
04 December 2015

Good afternoon everyone!

Finished up all the JB weld applying and sanding. Ed wet sanded the entire wheel last night and filler primed and then rattle can sprayed the first color coat of flat OD Green. Tonight it should get the final paint treatment of semi gloss 24087.

I think the repairs came out pretty good for an amateur.

Best wishes all!

Dave-
(W4CPO)

[Don Cavey]

Bingo, winner, winner, chicken dinner.

Looks great. It just takes time because you have to do it in steps. You gotta build up the missing hard rubber with the JB Weld.

It should be good to go!

[k8icu]

Looks good!

[md1970]

if you,d put power steering on your truck it would make it a lot easyer on you steering wheel also don't use wheel to pull yourself into the truck.