Current car, 2014 A6 vert. Looking at flat bottom steering wheel options.

A) From a 2016 ZO6 M. My assumption is I can swap the electronics from mine to the 2016 wheel. True? Concerns?

B) Buy a Revesol on the bay and live the red stripe and stitching...

Thanks.

 

Also curious about this for my 2015.

 

Yes, it will work. I bought a new flat bottom alcantara steering wheel from a 2016 or newer. It was easy to swap over the controls and install it. Just used an electric impact to get the center bolt off. Literally took like 15 mins. Make sure to unhook the battery for about 10 mins before you start. You don't want the air bag to deploy in your face.

 

You don't even strictly need to swap the electronics. There's no electrical difference in the paddles. They just have different markings. You could paint the M7 paddles to match your car for example.

Be really careful with the steering wheel bolt. There's lots of stories about people stripping the head. I didn't have any problems swapping the wheel on my 2014, but I had a good Torx bit and just used slow, steady pressure on a breaker bar. I haven't had a reason to have the wheel off my 2017 yet.

 

Also, be real careful with the pins going back into the controls (if you swap them out). I had some weird behavior and found that the pins didn't line up perfectly when I seated the modules. Also, do some good research into the swap if you haven't already. I didn't face this issue, luckily, but there's a ribbon cable that can unwind and cause a bunch of issues. See his thread:

https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...heel-swap.html

Good luck!

 

I know another forum member on this thread successfully used an impact while others have had problems. I tried the impact method and it jammed up my bolt so bad I went through 5 Torx bits to finally get it off with a breaker bar. And when the first Torx bit broke using the impact gun it wiped out the connections to the clock spring with it as the photo shows. Made an hour job turn into two weekends. If I had to do it again, I'd definitely use a 1/2' breaker bar to allow for steady pressure to the bolt and a controlled release of the pressure. And buy a new bolt - they're cheap and good insurance to have on hand just in case.



5 bits later...

When the first Torx socket broke using an impact wrench - wiped out the clock spring. USE A BREAKER BAR so you can control the pressure.

 

Good to know that the steering wheel from later C7 models is a direct swap.

 

Used a 2017 Flat bottom Steering on my 2015 with no issues.

I had better success using slow steady pressure from a long Breaker Bar vs the Impact Gun.

I also found that inserting two Allen keys with ball end on either side to release the Clips worked well.

Be careful with the Clock Spring as you don't want this coming out
.
As a precaution, with the Bolt removed I moved the Steering Wheel out slightly to create a gap between the back of the Steering and the Clock Spring and used a piece of masking Tape to hold the Spring in place before completely removing the Steering. Most likely unnecessary but was just be careful.

 

For my 2015 M7, I ordered this one off amazon for $215. Easy swap. This PN, 84131482, is for the suede leather wrap. Didn’t expect that, but I really like it, though.

The next best price I saw was on rockauto.com. No electronic swaps. Like others said, the paddles are the same. If it’s a concern, just make sure you find the one that matches your transmission. There are tons of them listed on rockauto under interior.

 

Advice....have a professional do it!! Here is why.

I got a new Carbon Fiber replacement wheel from eBay for my 2016 Stingray. Really nice wheel, well made. So I did my homework on how to replace it. Lots of YouTube videos. Overall it looked pretty simple. And yes, all the electronics and paddles swap over easy. Bought a breaker bar, even got a new center bolt from the dealer which comes with loctite already on it. So disconnected the battery and first removed the airbag which is easy. Disconnected the electronics and next that pesky center bolt. Took a bit of effort with the breaker bar to loosen that bolt. Would have been easier if another person was there to hold the wheel while doing it. So took off the wheel and swapped everything into the new one, again pretty easy. Well this is where it all started going down hill.....

Got the new wheel on and started tightening it down with the new bolt. I even bought new torx bits for this job. Well as I was tightening it down I got to around 3/16" before it would be all the way down and it just stopped. Would not move. And to make matters worse, It would not move in the other direction as well!! So I could not even loosen it. Was completely stuck!! Then as I was trying to loosen it I noticed the bold head where the torx bit goes into was starting to strip!!! (Note, I was doing this by hand). Well at this point I knew I was F'd!!!!

Even with wheel loose I was able to drive it....carefully. So took it to a local shop here I have used before, they primarily work on super cars and do customizations.

Well they couldn't even get the bolt out with their tools. They ended up having to drill it out. After getting it out, they say the steering shaft was damaged where the bolt goes in. They are not sure what happened, maybe the threads got damaged when I removed the original bolt, or maybe the new one got cross threaded when going in (although initially when I was tightening it, it was going in fine). Well they had to order another steering shaft.

Took a week to get it from Detroit. Well as they were installing it they found it we defective! WTF, so they could not use it. So this is where it gets worse......

They could not located another one!! They were working with a local Chevy dealer to try to find one. Took almost one month before they found one at a dealer in upstate NY. So they got it in and all good, they got the new wheel installed. So what ended costing me around $400 for the wheel and some new tools ended up costing me around $1400 and no car for almost a month!!

Lesson learned!!

I currently have a new custom Carbon Fiber wheel being made for my current 2019 Grand Sport by Zen Carbon Fiber. When I get it, I will NOT be doing it myself. Going to have the professionals do this time.
So just a heads up!!

The photo is the wheel I ended up putting into my Stingray.

 

That wheel looks nice. Was that matte carbon fiber? Seems like all of the aftermarket wheels are gloss. If I get one for my GSCE, I want a matte one that matches the dash.

 

Yes, matte. The new wheel I have being made also is matte, but perforated leather instead of alcantara.

 

Thanks for the Rock Auto heads up! I forget about them sometimes!!

I just checked RA, there's one with blue stitching!!

 

We've been driving our 2017 for 54k miles with the factory flat bottom wheel. I'm kinda overweight and sit close to the wheel, but still don't need the flat bottom, and considered switching to the earlier round bottom. Decided it wasn't worth the effort.

 

I've had them come off very easy and one that I ended up using an impact, drilling, heating and using an easy-out. Like already stated, must use a TOP Quality T50 Torx bit. I recommend finding a SnapOn.

 

On things like this I remove about 80% of the locktite on the new bolt. They always put way too much on the bolt. Makes it almost impossible to install and remove without excessive force.
I use to do a lot of gun smithing and ran into this issue all the time. A lot of stuck bolts and parts that had to be destroyed to remove them. Red locktite is the devil.
I seriously doubt the steering wheel is going to fall off without all that excess locktite on it.
Remember that a lot of the original locktite was left behind when you removed the bolt helping to bind things up. Always run a chaser thru the threads to clean it out as much as possible.

 

I know what you are saying, I collect antique lever action Winchester rifles and it can be a real bear to remove a screw on a 150 year old Winchester without damaging a screw that can't be correctly replaced.

 

I have a '73, a '94 takedown and a '95. They're not really a collection; they're family pieces that belonged to my grandfather and great-grandfather.

 

Use a hair dryer to help loosen the lock tight prior to removal, this how we do it the aviation industry to avoid tearing stuff up.

 

The hair dryer may not get things hot enough to do the job, and it heats more area than you might want. Somewhere in the Loctite specs it shows the max temperature for the different grades.
The metal front sights (usually aftermarket) on Glocks are now held in place with a very small screw from inside the slide. I use red Loctite to keep mine from coming loose, and "unstick" it for removal by applying a soldering gun to the head of the screw. That breaks the Loctite without damaging the tritium element in the sight, but I heat it for just a few seconds.

Exactly how to do this on a steering wheel without damaging anything, I'm not sure.