Steering Wheel Restoration

You've spent countless hours on bodywork and paint, your car's engine is spotless, and the interior looks perfect......well, except for that cracked steering wheel If you are in the same situation, you have several options: live with the cracked steering wheel, try to locate a good used steering wheel, purchase a reproduction or aftermarket steering wheel, or repair your existing steering wheel. For many, locating a good used steering wheel is difficult, and reproduction steering wheels (if available) are pricy. This leaves you with the options of either living with a cracked steering wheel, or repairing the existing steering wheel.

Repairing a cracked hard plastic or rubber steering wheel is a lot easier than most would think. To make the job even easier, Eastwood offers two steering wheel restoration kits (#52054 and #52194Z) that include detailed instructions.

To get started, you will first need to remove the steering wheel. Next, clean it with dishwashing detergent and water. You need to ensure that all oils from your skin has been removed from the steering wheel. After you have washed the steering wheel with dishwashing detergent and water, spray it with PRE. For any cracks, you will want to use a triangle file to V the crack (Tip - a Dremel style tool also works well). This will allow you to completely fill the crack with the PC-7 repair putty. You will want to mix the PC-7 following the directions on the back of the can. Slightly overfill the crack with the PC-7 (Tip - wet your finger with water to smooth out the PC-7). Allow the PC-7 to dry for 24 hours. After the PC-7 has thoroughly dried, start smoothing it with 240 grit sandpaper and finish up with 320 grit sandpaper. Spray it again with PRE to clean the surface. Be sure to not handle the steering wheel with your bare hands, as this will contaminate the surface with oils from your skin.. You are now ready to apply a primer. On this steering wheel, we used an aerosol can of Gray Self Etching primer to apply several light coats to smooth the surface. Once this dries, you are ready to apply your top-coat. The self-etching primer creates a great base for almost any top-coat finish (epoxies are not recommended). Our SEM vinyl interior dyes work great as top-coats over the Self Etching primer.

Here is a before picture of a steering wheel that we recently restored.

This image shows the cracks that the steering wheel had. This steering wheel had been repainted by a previous owner, so we sanded the finish off to get to the bare rubber. (Note - in this image, the previous owner's paint was hiding the extent of the crack. Once we removed the paint, we could see the full extent of the damage and V the crack to accept the PC-7 putty)

This image shows one of the cracks filled in with the PC-7, and then sanded with 240 grit and 320 grit sandpaper. Next, the steering wheel was wiped down with PRE and primed.

Here is the finished product. After the steering wheel was primed, it was painted with ivory white base coat, and then top-coated with a urethane clear coat.