As I'm buttoning up a drawn out ignition switch diagnosis and repair and trying to improve things as I go to make it feel like it was worthwhile, I'm taking this opportunity to swap in a different steering wheel.

My car has one of the aftermarket copies of the stock style, which I can't stand. The leather is the wrong texture, it's overly greyish and thus not black enough to match the rest of the car, it's a dorky design to begin with, and--worst of all--the damn thing is floppy as hell. The top half, being a considerable sweep of unsupported hoop due to the low placement of the two spokes, bends to and fro in a very uninspiring way. **** on that. It's outta here.

Years ago while I was crawling a wrecking yard of old cars when it still existed, I found what I thought was a pretty cool three spoke sport wheel in what I remember was an old Opel. I brought it home to try in my GTO and found that the splines didn't match my GM column (if you're thinking that wait--Opel is GM, keep reading) so I went and got a gross wheel out of some 90s Grand am, cut the hub out of it, and welded it into the Opel wheel after drilling out its stock hub. I ran the wheel in my GTO for a good while but recently decided to try something else in it so this wheel has been on the shelf.

Last year while cruising Bring A Trailer, I happened upon a listing for a 1980 Chevrolet Luv Mikado 2wd sport truck and I'll be damned if it had this very wheel in it! Turns out that is where it's originally from. And that truck is an Isuzu so that's why the splines are different. Well, Opel's splines might differ from North American GM too but that's irrelevant, turns out.

Anyway, the wheel came with a 3-horn button spider that fit through the spokes from the rear but I pulled that off immediately and for this application I'll be adapting my stock Corvette horn cap to it. To my utter delight it's a perfect fit, diameter wise. Here's a shot of it mocked up in the car:





It's 1" larger in diameter than stock at 15.25" across the outside and the rim is thinner, which I don't like, so at some point I'll give it a real leather wrap in the exact same style that it's molded of rubber to simulate. It's a pretty impressive casting, actually.

The installation is simple, save for the horn wiring. This wheel doesn't have the telescoping functionality of the stocker and thus lacks the same horn infrastructure. Fortunately, the plastic base of the horn button spider, which sits against the back of the wheel, just happens to have a raised lip that is exactly the right diameter to seat the end of the stock Corvette spring, which is used both to preload the telescoping wheel and carry the horn signal up to the horn button. All I need to do is drill a small hole in the plastic base for the poiny bit of the spring to pass through to the front side and then I can attach a wire to that in some manner and connect it to the horn button.

The mounting of the stock horn button will require the most work. I'll need to fashion a plate that sits in the natural lip molded into the front pad of the steering wheel and features the same four notches that the horn cover presses into. This will then need to be grounded to the column. I think I'm going to use two bolts running into the threaded holes of the wheel hub (used for pulling the wheel) to attach my adapter plate positively so that will give plenty of accommodation for grounding.

 

I got the wheel installed in the car and all seems well. I have yet to fabricate the horn button mounting plate but I got bigger issues at the moment.

I've been worried that a three spoke sport wheel (I've been contemplating a Momo Prototipo for a while) would obscure the view of the gauges but I was happy to find that is not the case at all.

 

Serveral years age I replaced my stock 1990 ZR-1 air bag wheel with a Sparco wheel they had an adapter for the GM steering column.I then came up with this aircraft style wheel made on a water jet. Handles came from a knife company ,I then cut the back side so I could run my horn wires. I do not track my Zr-1,but I drag race, this wheel works well for me. I also drive my car on the road when I'am not racing. Red buttons are horn and green button was for trans brake which i removed when i upgraded to a 4l8OE auto transmission. This set up has run a best of 11.54 @120 mph in the 1/4 mile and can pull 60ft times of 1.600 to 1.68 on average



Car has 149xxx miles, makes 418 rwhp
I don't get to race as much as I want , but when I do I have a blast
John

 

I've been driving my car with this new wheel and it's great. I love the way it looks, I love that it's far stiffer than the (aftermarket replacement) stock wheel I had before, and I even love the extra 1" diameter, which yielded quite a difference in required steering effort. At the risk of sounding like a sissy, I'll say that the stock diameter wheel with the Z51 rack is "pretty stout" for a daily driver. Totally within acceptable limits, of course, but the extra 1/2" lever arm afforded by the 1" larger wheel is actually really nice.

My only gripe is that the thickness of this wheel rim is far too small. The giant rim of the stock wheel is fantastic and I miss it. This wheel has finger indentations but they aren't nearly as pronounced as the stock wheel, sadly. I'm going to get to work laying out a pattern for a leather wrap for this thing and try my hand at stitching one on. I think it's going to need to be double thickness to get this rim where I want it.

I also still need to design and fabricate my adapter piece to mount the horn cap. I have it worked out in my head so now I need to take some measurements and draft it up. I think I'll have it fabbed by Send Cut Send.