Original Style Steering Wheel on Ididit Column?

[Dan in Pasadena]

Originally Posted by theastronaut

I contacted him before I started this thread. Cost is $1800 for a 16" '51 style wheel, and another $200 to modify it to fit the Ididit column. A bit out of the budget for this truck...

I found a vintage 15" wheel on ebay and it arrived today. I'll post the process of swapping the 15" rim onto a '54/55 style wheel.

WOW! I was going to call but why even bother? I couldn't afford that at half the price. I've been fretting bout buying one of the '55 Belair 15" wheels because they're almost $400. That looks like a deal compared to $2000! Ridiculous.

[theastronaut]

Knowing the amount of labor it takes to shrink and restore a wheel, $1000 wouldn't be unreasonable. That's only 20 hours at $50/hour. He has a lot of time creating the molds he uses to recast the wheels so there's that cost he has to add in.

[Flysocal]

I've done two of these so I will chime in. The 54 wheel hub matches the ididit column perfectly. That's why I switched my 49 wheel to a 54. Plus my cab is a 54. The splines are also a perfect match, it slides right on! The horn cancel orientation is an obstacle you will need to overcome if you are running turn signals. You can't simply drill a new hole with your harbor freight drill press, its hardened steel so I had to pay a machine shop to do it. The more modern wheels have the hole at 1030 which the ididit cancel is designed for. The AD trucks have the hole at 1130 which will not cancel correctly according to ididit tech: I have no tested my gear since my truck is not finished.

The reason I did two wheels is I wasn't happy with my first attempt. It looked good but the hoop was not perfectly round. I used the original hoop and reduced it. This is not difficult but very time consuming. You will end up with a teard drop shaped hoop, cracks and gaping holes you will need to sculpt. No matter how much time you spend it will not be perfect. I bought a 71 Camaro for the next project (recently sold to buy a 68 Firebird vert) and the steering wheel hoop was the perfect size and shape. So I started over grafting a 71 Camaro hoop to a 54 center section. Much easier than reducing the original hoop! I'm very happy with my second attempt it's at paint right now and will match my trucks exterior color. Let me see if I can post a picture or two....

[Flysocal]

[Flysocal]

Vgy.me

[theastronaut]

Flysocal, I ended up doing exactly what you did, grafting on another hoop. Lots of work to sculpt the epoxy into the correct shape! I need to drill the hole for the turn signal ring and it'll be done. Haven't decided if I'm going to paint the center cap or have it rechromed, and I'm waiting on a NOS horn contact plate. I'll post more pics once it's in the truck with the cap.

[Dan in Pasadena]

^^^ This looks phenomenal! HUGE congrats.

What kind of car was the smaller hoop from? DId you paint this yourself? The paint looks truly great.

[theastronaut]

Originally Posted by Dan in Pasadena

^^^ This looks phenomenal! HUGE congrats.

What kind of car was the smaller hoop from? DId you paint this yourself? The paint looks truly great.

Thanks Dan! The wheel was a random used wheel from eBay, and I'm not sure of it's original application. I think I searched for "vintage 15" steering wheel". I did the whole thing myself, including the paint. The paint is PPG/Omni single stage urethane that was matched from the dash trim.


If anyone wants to try this themself, I used 3-4 coats of SPI epoxy primer as a "high build" instead of Slick Sand like I've used on wheels in the past. This way the primer is thinner and doesn't lose the details on the spokes as much. Slick Sand sticks great to the original wheel material and fills in more imperfections, but it's too thick for wheels with a lot of details like these.

[Flysocal]

Wow! That turned out really nice. The paint is perfect. I’m having mine painted to match my exterior color but the black definitely works!

[theastronaut]

Originally Posted by Flysocal

Wow! That turned out really nice. The paint is perfect. I’m having mine painted to match my exterior color but the black definitely works!

Thanks! It's actually very dark brown to match the existing paint on the dash trim. Color shows better in this pic. Haven't decided if I'm going to paint the horn button to match or have it rechromed yet.