TR6 original steering wheel restoration

[Richiep]

Hi,

can anyone point me in the direction of somewhere that can restore an original TR6 steering wheel please?

I've looked through the forums and can’t seem to find anyone who has had these restored, and I know many people opt for a ‘similar looking’ Motolita one.. but I’d rather retain the original. The main problem is with the plating on the spokes which has corroded and partly come off.

Many thanks in advance..

Richard 

[ed_h]

It's pretty easy to get the foam cover off in one piece.  Then you can take it to a plater.  Foam can be glued back on.  With judicious choice of cutting location, the seam won't show.

Ed

[Keith66]

Richard

I have (or will soon'ish) have a simlar problem.

As Ed says you can carefully remove the foam and get the spokes replated professionally and then refinish the wheel. But if you look on Ed's site at what he ended up doing you'll realise not evenyone has those skill's.

Or what i may do is rub down the spokes with varying grades of wet and dry and then paint them (or get it painted) in a satin sliver close to the original and get the foam properly wrapped in leather.

But i think any paint will need to be 2pack or a hard satin lacquer so to be harder wearing than a tin of Halfords Satin Silver Aerosol. lol.

Keith

[colin3511]

Keith,

There's a new one on eBay. Just needs your centre. Might save a lot of hassle.

Colin

[saffrontr]

Keith, I did one of mine a few years back by rubbing down and painting in Halfords spray paint, pretty sure it was Renault Silver Grey Metallic, and it came out very well. See attached image of it alongside an NOS one.  It certainly hasn't worn through anywhere and it has been on the car off and on over the past few years. The painted one is on the left.

cheers

Derek

 

[Marc R]

Hi Dereck, thanks for the pictures and ref for the paint, you approach is the way I shall follow for the steering wheel from my CP '71.

Best regards

[Keith66]

Hi Derek

That was/is def the plan.

I was worried about a cheapo paint wearing through but your's looks great.

Gives me a bit more confirmation that my idea wasn't so dumb after all.

Colin

Just looked at the one on e-bay. That was exactly what i was going to do.

But, and this is a personal opinion (i'm sure some will not agree) but the rim looks to thick?

So my idea is now to cover my slightly rough foam in leather but i'm going to specify it pretty thin leather to try to retain the look of the original wheel but have it in nice smooth leather look, errr hopefully.

Cheers

Keith

Edited December 29, 2018 by Keith66

[astontr6]

On ‎12‎/‎27‎/‎2018 at 5:33 PM, ed_h said:

It's pretty easy to get the foam cover off in one piece.  Then you can take it to a plater.  Foam can be glued back on.  With judicious choice of cutting location, the seam won't show.

Ed

Does any one know what sort of plating it is as it looks like satin chrome to me and that will I expect will be the problem to find anyone who does that today?

Bruce.

[ed_h]

I showed the disassembled wheel to my plater, and he called it satin chrome.  He said they would Scotchbrite it between the nickel and chrome steps. It didn't sound like he had much call for it.

Ed

Edited December 29, 2018 by ed_h

[SteveB21]

A very useful thread as I'm looking to do something similar.  I have a related question - what's the best way to clean-up and restore the rubber (I assume?) doughnut - will a standard rubber/vinyl cleaner from Autoglym or similar do the trick?

Thanks

Steve