Welcome back for the 3rd and final installment.. OK the wheel looks great ! But will it last ? Since this is not a proven "
How to" I wanted to put the wheel thru a basic heat/cool test and see what happens. After the Part 2 post I left the wheel on it's stand clamped to my outside workbench (that's in the sun) for 3 days & 2 nights. The afternoon of the 3rd day I checked it and there were 3 cracks on the outside each side of the main bar. I removed it from the stand and noticed that the cracks were from the plastic I left on the inside of the main bar. To eliminate the problem I cut out all of the loose plastic on the inside of the main bar and ground out all of the 6 (Photo 779 & 781) cracks that you would see with the horn bar installed. Filled in all the cracks again and went thru the sanding process. I even ground down the lower part of the main bar (Photo 782) so the epoxy would adhere. Prepped and painted the wheel again. (photo 784)
Subjected it to more heat/cool cycles, this time 4 days. and the overall wheel looks good, I placed on my workbench and took several photos (photo 789 & 790) If you did not see any cracks that's good because there were several hairline cracks on what would be the underside of the wheel that the camera could not pick up.
The wheel looks so good that a few hairline cracks really don't bother me at all. This whole "
How to" was an experiment ! can it be done on a small budget without any expensive tools ? The answer is "Yes" That's why I did not buy any expensive automotive paint, I just was not sure how the epoxy filler would react with the plastic and steel frame.. On a scale of 100 I would say it's a 90. (Photo 793) Now lets see what happens when it is exposed to a NY winter ? When I remove the original badly cracked steering wheel from the Code Z GS I will attempt to restore that wheel too, with the lessons I have learned so far. And some other ideas, I will keep you posted on the Code Z GS restoration listing
Now the numbers: Total approximate hours worked 18. If you had to purchase all the supplies- SEM high build primer $20. Paint $7.69 Sandpaper $8.75 Epoxy $26.12 Dremel type tool $80. Total=$142.56
To have a steering wheel restored in CA it should be around $650.00 Tony
