MG-Cars.net

Welcome to our resource for MG Car Information.

Recommendations

Parts

MG parts spares and accessories are available for MG T Series (TA, MG TB, MG TC, MG TD, MG TF), Magnette, MGA, Twin cam, MGB, MGBGT, MGC, MGC GT, MG Midget, Sprite and other MG models from British car spares company LBCarCo.

MG MGA - Steering Wheel Restoration

I have an original plastic covered steel steering wheel and the plastic is in bad shape.

How does one go about restoring an original steering wheel?
gerard hutchinson

I know that Eastwood Automotive (http://www.eastwoodco.com/) has some kits for this, but I have not tried them myself. Search their site on "steering" and there are a number of hits.
David "We won't mention the battery tender on their home page..." Lieb
David Lieb

Gerard, I restored mine using J-B Weld. There were cracks on both sides at the four places where the spokes join the rim, and numerous gouges around the rim. Several applications of the J-B Weld are needed since the cracks are usually through to the metal spokes. After filling, I sanded the filled crack areas with a fine grade of sandpaper, as well as the entire rim. I had it painted by a body shop that does restoration work, and it looks great. You could probably use a high-gloss spray paint at home, but it only cost me about $85 at the shop. Funny thing, as I described my repair technique to the shop owner, he said that he had recently read in a trade journal that J-B Weld was recommended to restoration shops for plastic steering wheels. I haven't installed it yet, and I will be very careful not to lean on the rim and start the cracking again, if that's possible.

George
G Goeppner

I repaired mine with epoxy putty. It comes as a tube like a twinkie with epoxy on the outside and hardener on the inside. You cut off a piece and knead it to mix the epoxy and hardener. I sanded it and painted with black Krylon and it has held up well. You can get the putty at most hardware stores.


PS You have to wonder about the gullibility of the late night TV viewer. They take the same putty you can buy for $3 at any hardware store, give it a name like Mighty Putty, and sell it for $19.99 plus shipping.




Jeff Schultz

I tried the Eastwood wheel repair kit. It was something call PC7 Epoxy. Fill and sand, fill and sand, then paint. Looked good at first. Then, after a year or so, the cracks started to return. Maybe I didn't do it right, but I don' think so. Go with George's suggestion about JB Weld. Love the stuff. Should have "stuck" with it.

GTF
G T Foster

I fixed mine with epoxy putty many (ten?) years ago. The metal ring must have been off centre and it had appeared through the original covering at one point. There is now a slight thickening of the rim on the outside edge where the epoxy is now covering it but if you didn't know about it you would never see it. The only problem is the paint has now worn off and the greenish-grey epoxy is showing through. It needs to come off for a respray, it was only painted with something, now long forgotten, from a black aerosol can to start with.
Malcolm Asquith

I first tried epoxy only to repair the cracks at the crossbars. The cracks reappeared within a few months. Then I re-did one repair, winding fiberglass "strings" in the wet epoxy. That repair has not re-cracked after two years.
Gary Poe

I read an article about this years ago. Apparently there is a P loop around the rim, to which the steering wheel spokes are attached. If you lean on the wheel, the welds holding the P clip to the rim break, and the cracking then starts.

The fix was to grind back the plastic coating the rim to reveal the P clip, then reweld it to the rim. In the pictures they left the plastic covering the ends of the spokes in place as a guide for redoing the poxy afterwards. Then the missing black plastic was replaced with black epoxy, left to harden and polished. The result was an invisible repair.

The original MGA steering wheels are available, made on the original tools. The original profile is much nicer in the hand than the Moss repros, much less "bump" on the rear, and much smoother to turn through the hands. Having an original "original" (with only minimal cracks that haven't got any worse after 20 years of ownership), it's easy to tell when a repro is on a car.


dominic clancy

Dominic,
Do you have any photos of the stripped down wheel showing the P clips? This might be useful to others doing a wheel repair in future.
I used 2-part epoxy with metal in it, and this had the advantage of being both strong and black in clour. But I did not strip the wheel, just filled the cracks.
Peter.
P. Tilbury

Hope this is what you are looking for Peter.

Andres


Andres Losin

Nice shot Andres. Haven't seen that before.
Thanks,
GTF
G T Foster

The steel is in good shape and is quite sturdy. The plastic finish is beyond repair and needs to be replaced.

Andres, what did you do to cover your steering wheel?
gerard hutchinson

Gerard, I have not done anything to cover it yet. The steering wheel was in a fire so all that is left is the metal (chrome still looks alright). My plan is to cover it in wood but I have not decided on what type. Walnut burl maybe or something else exotic.

Andres
Andres Losin

How will you do that? I have thought about doing the same thing.
gerard hutchinson

I have started to do that to mine. I torched the plastic off because it was so bad (cracks and all).
I work in a wood flooring manufacturing plant so I found a 22 in. wide plank of brazilian cherry, cut two
pieces 22 by 22 inch, sanded them to aprox. 5/8 inch and now I will cut out the shape of the wheel, grove out or router the inside to fit the wire wheel, glue them together, shape it mostly by hand, add the finger grips and finish... tom
Tom Peotter

I will be doing something similar to Tom. Basically I will take short blocks of wood (maybe 12 sections to make a complete circle) and router out a groove to fit over the metal frame on the front side. Then the same for the back side. I will then glue these to the steering wheel and each other. Once I have all the sections glued I will use my overhead router and a pattern to shape the whole thing perfectly round. Then switch bits and shape a nice radius on the front and back sides. Switch bits again and router out the finger holes using a pattern. Sand, paint and enjoy. I will probably need to do quite a bit of hand work around the spokes to make it look nice. I might do some inlay work as well but I have not decided yet.

Andres
Andres Losin

This thread was discussed between 23/09/2008 and 25/09/2008

MG MGA index

This thread is from the archive. The Live MG MGA BBS is active now.