Mid Year Wood Grain Steering Wheel repair

[Mike Yager]

I have a 64 with the plastic wood grain steering wheel. At the left side spoke, it has a small, half-inch hairline crack. Since the crack is so thin, I was thinking of filling it with a dark brown filler or epoxy. My thoughts were this would make the crack look no worse than it is now and might actually strengthen the area, helping to prevent further cracking.

Any thoughts or experience on this type of repair or should I just leave it alone? Appearance is not really an issue as the crack is barely noticeable.

Thanks.

Mike #34340

[Grant M.]

Re: Mid Year Wood Grain Steering Wheel repair

Mike,

What you're proposing will probably work, but if you decide at some point to do a better restoration, the 'Teak Freaks' offer a service to repair such damage. I think it's about $150 or so, but the results look pretty good (I've never seen a 'new' plastic wheel, but the restored ones surely look close to what new would be like. Apparently this sideline to their primary line of work (repro teak wheels) came about because of the large quantity of ground-up plastic wheel material they were accumulating from wheels turned in for conversion to teak. I was told that they use a process to soften the material (heat/chemical) and then 'flow' it into cracks, etc, finishing with a buffing which makes the wheel look like new.

grant