How to re cover a steering wheel.

[Typhoon90]

Someone asked about this recently, I did a write up ages ago on another forum and just found it, so thought I'd post it up. It's definitely doable for an amateur project and is something good to do in little bits here and there, as it will drive you nuts after a couple of hours!
So, here it is:

So, you have a ratty old wheel that just needs new leather? Well, here is one method of re covering the wheel.
Most steering wheels made in the last 10-15 years have the leather glued on. This is great for fast production but at the expense of longevity. Even Momo went to gluing leather on, but they did stitch in a few high wear areas. A few select companies such as Moto Lita still completely stitch their wheels.
The problems with gluing are that the glue breaks down in the steering wheel because steering wheels get REALLY hot, the glue allows the leather to move and leather shrinks as it ages, and the glue eventually pulls away from the polyurethane foam and the leather.
The correct, traditional way to cover a wheel is to stitch it, but it is a very slow, time consuming task.
So, you have an old wheel, your gnarly hands have worn through the leather in several places, stitching is gone, glue is gone. It looks like this perhaps:

The first step is to remove the leather covering. You can safely throw it away, it is useless for making a pattern from, it will be shrunk and torn to shreds and no pattern you ever make from it will ever fit!
Once you remove all the leather, give the wheel a sand with some 240 grit paper to remove all the old leather and some of the glue. Don't worry about removing it all, just get it smooth, the new leather will hide it all.

The next step is to mark the wheel out so you can start patterning the leather. You want to start with the small leather pieces that cover the end of the spokes. Mark a line where you want the leather to finish on the spokes, and make a few reference marks on the foam. As you pattern and shape the leather, these marks will help you realign the leather in the same spot as you mark, trim mark etc.

Cut  a piece of leather oversize and start trimming. It is best to start on the good face of the wheel. You will end up with some weird shapes, but that is fine. Make sure you leave a generous amount of leather at the outside of the spokes so there is plenty of overlap when you cover the rim of the wheel.


Then glue your steering wheel and your leather generously with contact adhesive. Spend the money and buy the proper stuff in a ctin that you apply with a brush. You want the glue to be absorbed by the leather and foam.
Remember how I said glue fails on steering wheels? This is the one area it is fine, the leather pieces are so small no real shrinkage happens, so they tend to stay put.
Don't worry if you have a bit of a coarse edge at the rim, a sharp blade will sort this out. Concentrate on getting the visible finished edge on the spoke and the seam behind the spoke nice.

  Wrap the spokes with some cable ties or string to hold them whilst the glue sets. Once it is set, remove the ties and run super glue along the seam edge to hold it together permanently.
If you are using a fairly thin leather, you will want to sand the edges of the leather that will be underneath the rim covering, to make  a nice smooth transition that won't be seen.I used 1.8mm pigskin because it is tough and durable, so it didn't matter.
Now the tricky bit! Measure your steering wheels circumference and  grip circumference and cut a piece of leather that size or a little wider. Length is no problem, we will cut it down. Just make sure the long edges are STRAIGHT, it will help in marking up.
You want to try and stretch the leather around the wheel as much as you can to get a proper length to cut the leather at. You really do want it tight. Once you have that measurement, take 30mm (1- 1/4") off that and sew it up.  Then try and stretch it over the wheel. It should curl around quite significantly, and be very hard to wrap around. You'll have to start at one point and slowly work it round. Seam should be at the top, mark your wheel to assist you getting the leather back in the same place.

Once you have achieved this, you want to mark up the long seam that will join the leather around the rim together. Roll the leather around and mark where the seam is in many spots. Most wheels are not a uniform grip diameter, so make plenty of marks. Roll the leather around with your hands.
Once you have all that marked up, move it to a bench, join the dots with a straight edge and trim it away. Take an extra millimetre or so off the width, to allow some stretch when you sew the cover on.

Once you are confident the cover is nice, refit it again, check it all over for good fit, trim again on the wheel if necessary and remove cover yet again.
Run a row of stitching around the edges of the leather around 2-2.5mm in from the edge. Keep the stitch long. Longer stitch means less hand sewing! You want  a stitch length around 4mm. Use  a large needle, it makes hand sewing easier.
Once you have that done, stretch the cover back on for the last time, pick a corner near a spoke and start hand sewing. A ball point needle is the best for this, as it will find the existing holes you made with the sewing machine. The only reason we ran a row of stitching along the leather is to make the holes for this.
The best way to hand sew is to start at one end, work about half way along, then go back and pull the stitching tight, then move forward from there. You want to avoid pulling any single particular stitch too tight, spread the load as you tighten the stitching up, or you may pull the thread through the leather.
I won't write about starting and finishing the stitching, there are many ways to do that, all available online. A baseball or herringbone stitch also works well, but I merely go across the wheel. It works just fine.
Once you get all this done. the wheel will be done!

A few points to note:
Buy quality leather. Soft leather is not well suited to this task, it will wear through in a hurry. You also want a decent thickness of leather, 1.2mm is the minimum I would use, imaging a good thick household furniture leather, that is what you want.
  If you want a suede look, just sew the leather up with the tanned side in, furry side out. But be warned that with use, the suede look will smooth in high wear areas eventually.
Use only polyester thread for this job. Cotton rots, other synthetics fail. Use the thickest thread you can find. I used V207, V138 would do fine too. The heavier the thread, the stronger it is and the easier to handle when sewing.
Use a chinagraph pencil to mark everything up. White spirit removes it later.
Take your time marking everything up, it is the CRITICAL part of the job, it makes the job look great or crap. Don't rush the job, it takes about six hours or more, do a bit, leave it, come back later etc. The sewing is great to do in front of the TV.

Regards, Andrew.