C1 Steering Wheel Restoration

[Christopher R.]

The hub on my '62 steering wheel needs to be painted. Trying to decide whether to remove the hub from the wheel in order to more easily prepare and paint the hub. I know I can drill out the 6 rivets that attach the hub to the wheel. But it's a pain to do that. I see some of the vendors sell screws and nuts for the reattachment job, and some sell rivets. Questions:

1. Advice on whether to remove the hub. Has anyone ever prepared and painted the hub while it was attached to the steering wheel? How difficult? What are your recommendations?

2. If you took the hub off, how did you reattach it? Rivets or screws and nuts? If rivets, how did you do that? Is a special tool necessary?

[Mike G.]

Re: C1 Steering Wheel Restoration

Chris, I didn't take my hub off my original wheel, so I have no advice about removing the rivets.

But I bought a new wheel and hub from CC. The heads of the screws they include to attach the hub look to my eyes exactly like the original rivet heads. So unless someone were to remove the steering wheel and look inside the hub, I don't know that anyone could tell the difference. And they were a piece of cake to install.

[Mark S. Lovejoy]

Re: C1 Steering Wheel Restoration

Hi Chris,

I drilled the old rivets and got the kit from Corvette Central. They are machine screws with blind heads, you assemble them with lock tight (I used the red stuff). It worked great on the '58. I'll bet flat head machine screws would work too.

Best from Frozen Connecticut......Mark

[Ed Jennings]

Re: C1 Steering Wheel Restoration

You can also use flat socket head screws. The horn button will cover the socket head.

[Joe Maulsby]

Re: C1 Steering Wheel Restoration

Chris, I just lightly sanded my 1960 hub, masked off everthing and sprayed it with can of CC aerosol paint. It came out smooth and no overspray on any other part of the wheel. I used the two inch blue painters masking tape. It was easy to spray and get good coverage. You could always try that option first and if you don't like the results, drill out the rivets, remove the hub, and then re-paint.

You could probably use paint stripper on the hub if you wanted to take it down to bare metal, then apply etch-primer, then color coat; being very careful not to get the stripper on the plastic part of the wheel.