Steering wheel GTV

poohbah · June 20, 2015, 09:27:25 PM

I plan to swap my small sports steering wheel back to original wood rim wheel. I presume there should be a spring of some sort between the centre pad and the contact ring?

I've pulled the hub of my wood rim wheel apart and it doesn't seem to have anything to keep the horn pad from dropping back onto the contact ring.

Anyone able to point me to what I need to find?

poohbah · June 20, 2015, 09:54:48 PM

Ah, the Power of Google. I guess this spring is what I'm after.

festy · June 21, 2015, 11:24:54 AM

The spring you're after has an ID of about 60mm and a free height of 24mm if that helps?

carlo rossi · June 21, 2015, 12:16:57 PM

if you find a spare wheel please call
you are well on your way

poohbah · June 21, 2015, 12:17:35 PM

Cheers Festy. That will help. I took the horn pad off the sports wheel currently fitted in the hope that it might have had the same spring, but it is a fully self-contained horn unit.

poohbah · September 13, 2016, 06:26:11 PM

Hi folks, its been a long time since I planned to swap the small Momo-style sports wheel on my GTV for the original wood rim wheel.

The reason is that I couldn't get the bloody sports off the column so ended up putting it on the backburner.

Anyhow, I am inspired to have another go after replacing the leather boots on both gear shift and handbrake, and refurbishing and reinstalling the original door cards on the weekend. Those little things have really improved the interior.

So any tips? I bought a generic puller from SuperCheap, but there aren't any holes in the Momo hub to attach the bolts to anyway.

The thing seems jammed on tight. I don't want to damage either the wheel, the hub or the spline.

Also - my off-white headlining is pretty discoloured and shabby looking. I don't really want to replace the whole thing, so am thinking about spraying it with black fabric/vinyl paint. Anyone else tried that and have any useful tips (including what is best to use)?

(I just looked more closely at the wheel itself - I suspect it's a cheap knock-off of a Momo: only has five allen key-headed bolts instead of six on a real Momo, and a single-piece hub. All the more reason to put the original wooden wheel back on.)

marktim · September 13, 2016, 09:31:50 PM

Hey, let me know how you go getting it off, it's one of the jobs on my list, take the wheel off and try and rejuvenate the plastic that's been chipped of from the p/o having used a steering lock, good luck, cheers.

Neil Choi · September 13, 2016, 09:41:08 PM

You can "shock" it off by hitting the top of spline shaft with a mallet through a thick aluminum rod, with someone pulling on it. Keep the nut on but loose, so you don't bash yourself in the head once it comes off loose from the spline.

poohbah · September 13, 2016, 10:06:18 PM

Cheers Neil, I'll give it a go on weekend. The tip about keeping the nut on is mentioned on a few different sites - must be quite a few folk with broken noses from trying!

When you say hit top of spline, I gather you mean hit it in line with centrepoint of spline in direction of dash?

Neil Choi · September 14, 2016, 06:35:22 AM

Quote from: poohbah on September 13, 2016, 10:06:18 PM
When you say hit top of spline, I gather you mean hit it in line with centrepoint of spline in direction of dash?

Yes. And a BFH helps.

poohbah · September 14, 2016, 09:22:18 AM

Thanks.

Fetta GTV · September 14, 2016, 10:05:27 AM

I think you will find that the interior feels much smaller and darker if you spray the headliner black.
I gave mine a wipe with a strong bleach solution an it cleaned it up reasonable well.

poohbah · September 14, 2016, 11:04:20 AM

Thanks for that Fetta.

I have wondered about that. One of the things I am hoping to achieve is to reduce the number of different colours in the cabin (my seats were reupholstered in black several years ago, while the door cards are a dark-greyish velour, carpets etc are black.

I also hope black will make it easier to camouflage small patches over the couple of tears in the headlining (as you'd expect, they are both near passenger grab handles - one in front and the other above RHS rear seat).

poohbah · September 17, 2016, 09:54:46 PM

Well, I finally got the sports wheel off and the wood rim on.

After about 45 mins of swearing and attempts at using brute force with no discernible effect, I remembered I had some WD40, sprayed it on the spline and nipped out to buy a gear puller.

Then I spent another half hour working out how to make a workable spacer out of sockets because the centre bolt of the gear puller was too short.

Finally got the right socket (actually 2 with a smaller one on the end with a screw in it so it would centre in the divot on the end of the spline) took two turns and the hub dropped off with so much ease I suspect it was really just because of the WD40.

So my advice (Marktim you were planning to do yours), spray on WD40, give it a few minutes to soak in and then try pulling it off (with nut still on a couple of turns so you don't break your nose). Then, if it still doesn't come off, go and get a cheap gear puller with the longest centre bolt you can find.

Anyway, it may not be everyone's cup of tea but I'm pretty happy with the result - I reckon it looks so much more "Alfa" than before. It also feels much better in my hands than the squishy rimmed sports wheel (still don't know what brand - no logo but it was stamped Made in Italy).

I've bought some black vinyl paint too, which I will try on some off-cut vinyl before I decide to go ahead and spray the headliner.

V AR 164 · September 17, 2016, 10:16:53 PM

Looks great! You are lucky to have the original wheel in what looks to be in very good condition. The wood grain looks much better and, as you said, looks more 'Alfa'

I'm trying to do the opposite as you, I want to get an aftermarket wheel and hub as the standard steering wheels that came in the 164's are quite big and flimsy and not very confidence inspiring on a spirited drive.

Andrew.