wood

[johnl]

Sat in a 'facelift' 156 the other week (at a car yard in Taree, amazing...). I want that gorgeous wooden steering wheel for my 147. The 156 facelift wheel looks pretty much the same as the 147 wheel except for the wood instead of the cheap fake leather. It's not like the earlier 156 wheel with the less appealing centre.

Looked on-line, can't afford the only one I could find, sigh...

Regards,
John.

[ugame]

Ah you'd probably like the Auto Technica steering wheel I have collecting dust in my garage.

Came on my Beetle when I got it.

I ripped it out in favor of a SaaS.

I'm teasing you of course. I pulled it out purely because given the beetle pops out of 2nd, I knew trying to hold on to a wooden wheel with only 1 hand, while holding 2nd with the other, during a Motorkarna event was never going to work. So I needed something with much more grip.

I know the wheel you mean on the 156 though as I've driven a couple with them in as loan cars.

I wasn't a fan at first. It felt out of place in a modern car. However the more I understood the history of Alfa interiors the more it made sense and felt right.

[Citroënbender]

John, what about making fit, the wheel off an Odyssey? The leather-and-wood ones, I mean.  Seem to be constantly on the market.

[bazzbazz]

Don't forget to get the matching wood shift stick knob. 

And yes, I agree, one of the best looking interiors for their time are the second generation "Facelift" 156s with the two tone interiors and wood wheel and shift knob.

[warsch]

I believe that the connectors don't exactly match but can be modified to fit.

[poohbah]

I'm biased, but my perfect interior is a mix of red leather seats, white dials, and black leather steering wheel (as in my current early series 1 156) and the faux carbon-fibre fascia of later Series 1 156s (like my first 156).

I reinstalled the original faux wood-rim wheel in my 81 GTV - looks so much better, and gives much better feel and leverage (no power steering obviously) than the small diameter sports wheel i removed - but I'm not a fan of the wood rim wheel in some 156 variants, which to me looks out of place in a late model car.

Each to their own of course!

[johnl]

Ah you'd probably like the Auto Technica steering wheel I have collecting dust in my garage.

I wouldn't. Not  fan of chrome, nor finger grooves, nor bumps on the rim.

Having said that, I'm not entirely averse to shiny things. I do like polished aluminium, hence the polished alluminium gear knob on my car, but oddly I don't like it on road wheels. Polished aluminium has a nice colour and lustre, chrome has a blueish tinge I find less appealing. In either case it's easily possible to have too much polished metal.

The cardinal sin for polished metal is for the surface to be ripply, which is a fault the polished shine only highlights in an unfortunate manner. This is an issue with many aftermarket wheels I've seen (both steering and road wheels with polished metal). Long ago I was tasked with cleaning up and finishing some new road wheel castings for a Bugatti Type 35B. These were the classis Bugatti aluminium wheels, which came fully machined but the spokes still roughcast (as still obtainable through the Bugatti Owners Club of Great Britain, in fact you could pretty much clone a whole Bugatti from newly made parts, if you had a large enough bucket of cash). After sanding them back as evenly as reasonably possible I tried polishing one of them, but it looked bad because the surface wasn't perfectly 'unripley'. Much nicer with a 'brushed' finish, achieved with Scotchbrite.

I'm teasing you of course. I pulled it out purely because given the beetle pops out of 2nd, I knew trying to hold on to a wooden wheel with only 1 hand, while holding 2nd with the other, during a Motorkarna event was never going to work. So I needed something with much more grip.

I've never had a problem with gripping hard surfaced steering wheels. Maybe I don't have sweaty palms?

I know the wheel you mean on the 156 though as I've driven a couple with them in as loan cars.

I wasn't a fan at first. It felt out of place in a modern car. However the more I understood the history of Alfa interiors the more it made sense and felt right.

I agree that in most modern cars it would look a bit silly, or pretentious. However, with Alfa Romeo there is a very very long tradition of wooden rimmed wheels being the standard wheel (or at least available as an option), which is if not an unbroken tradition then at least nearly so, so I think it's fair enough to fit a wooden wheel. There is also something about the vaguely retro ambience of the Alfa interior that IMO permits a wooden wheel to be fitted without it seeming like a bit of a wank. Our Saab 9-5 has a partially wood / partially leather steering wheel. I don't think the wood really works as nicely in this car.

The 156 'facelift' wheel is also a bit thicker in the rim. It has no finger grooves as the earlier 156 wooden wheels do. It has no silly bumps in the rim. It feels nice, and looks lustrous with it's very smooth surface.

The 147 wheel is nice enough, a lot nicer than most modern steering wheels, but IMO less nice than the later model wooden 156 wheel. It has lumps (which I don't like). The 'leather' is at best cheap and coated with something a bit nasty (that peels off and so on my wheel needs black boot polish so it doesn't look terrible), at worst not really actual leather. It's unecessarily complicated, by which I mean it's made from too many different pieces of leather(?). One peice at the top, then the lower section is made from two peices with a seam at the front and a seam at the rear of the wheel, both of which can be felt as lumps under my hands.

Regards,
John.

[johnl]

John, what about making fit, the wheel off an Odyssey? The leather-and-wood ones, I mean.  Seem to be constantly on the market.

A serious suggestion? I'm assuming not, since the mechanical issues of such a conversion would be very substantial and the legal ones almost insurmountable.

At any rate, I don't like that wheel...

Regards,
John.

[johnl]

Don't forget to get the matching wood shift stick knob. 

And yes, I agree, one of the best looking interiors for their time are the second generation "Facelift" 156s with the two tone interiors and wood wheel and shift knob.

I'd have the wood knob (double entendre noted, no sniggering please), if I didn't prefer the polished aluminium one I currently have.

I've had a number of custom made metal gear knobs in different cars over the years, I like them, but there is an issue with metal knobs. In summer they get a tad warm in a car that's been left in the blazing sun for a while...

Regards,
John.

[johnl]

I believe that the connectors don't exactly match but can be modified to fit.

My understanding is that all the 147 and 156 wheels are physically interchangeable, but a minor modification may be needed depending on which wheel is being fitted to which steering column.

From memory I vaguely recall reading that; while some (either 147 or 156, can't remember) steering columns do have spline teeth all the way around the circumference of the splined fitting, others do not. These other columns have at least one spline groove missing (more than one?). In this case there is a 'blank' unsplined section within the splined end of the column, like one extra wide spline among the 'normal' splines. This means that for a wheel to fit onto such a column (with a spline groove missing) the wheel must correspondingly have a spline tooth missing.

So;

If a wheel was made to fit onto a column that does have splines all the way around, then in order to fit onto a column that does not have splines all the way around, the wheel would need to be modified by having a spline tooth filed out.

And;

If a wheel was made to fit onto a column that does not have splines all the way around, then in order to fit onto a column that does have splines all the way around, it would have in effect one double thick spline tooth that would have to be filed out

Obviously if the wheel and column have splines all the way round, then the wheel can be fitted in any rotational position on the column. But, if a spline tooth and groove are missing then the steering wheel can only be fitted in one particular position on the column.

Regards,
John.

[Citroënbender]

The 147 steering wheels are indexed, skip-splined, however you want to put it. They have a double spline at 12:00, and then two other doubles at approximately 4:30 and 7:30.  I've put a facelift wheel on a pre-facelift car, no worries. The earlier 147 wheels are more completely stitched and rely less on heat/urethane bonding of the covers.  They'd be better candidates for lignification.

Perhaps, the Honda suggestion may have been a tad lingua apud maxilla... 

[ugame]

I have a spare 147 wheel off car. Happy to take a snap of the back if that would help.

[johnl]

The 147 steering wheels are indexed, skip-splined, however you want to put it. They have a double spline at 12:00, and then two other doubles at approximately 4:30 and 7:30.  I've put a facelift wheel on a pre-facelift car, no worries.

My understanding of this only came from something I read on-line some time ago, not wrong but not as in depth as your knowledge.

The earlier 147 wheels are more completely stitched and rely less on heat/urethane bonding of the covers.  They'd be better candidates for lignification.

Thank you making me look that up! Of course I then realised that I did know that lignum is Latin for wood.

Why, if the earlier wheels are better made, are they "better candidates"?

Nicest steering wheel I ever used was the 13" Momo 'Prototipo' I had in my Nota. Great feel and real leather, still looked good after years exposed to the elements because real leather ages gracefully...

Perhaps, the Honda suggestion may have been a tad lingua apud maxilla... 

Didn't have to look that up, figured it out all by myself! (and I didn't even do Latin at school).

Regards,
John.

[bazzbazz]

For the those who are not linguists -

lingua apud maxilla - tongue in cheek

[ugame]

For the those who are not linguists -

lingua apud maxilla - tongue in cheek

hehe based on the context, taking into account several threads, that was my conclusion before enlisting the help of Google