Series 2 steering wheel home repair resin convert
Posted: Tue Dec 10, 2019 9:16 pm
Hi,
The other day, much to my annoyance, I discovered some fresh cracking to my 'good' steering wheel, caused I suspect by my steering lock (some homemade padding required there methinks.....). So, as the cracks were small and I have read up about doing this before I decided to have a go fixing them with some Araldite resin, whilst the steering wheel is removed from the car, ironically, so it doesn't get damaged whilst refurbishment / welding is going on......
Anyway, I set about repairing this one and noticed after that I had mixed too much up and had a large quantity left over, so I eyed up the original wheel hiding behind the chairs in the living room, badly cracked and, I thought, beyond the abilities of a 'back street tinkerer' like me and decided "why not?"........
I have mentioned this steering wheel before, in another post, enquiring about getting the frame stripped and remade, however for those who didn't see that, this is the damaged wheel 'before':
Needless to say the cracks were deeper than they looked at first and swallowed up copious amounts of Araldite over two sessions of filling, a day to harden, light sanding with wet and dry, more filling and left to harden for a day for a second time. This was followed my a final good sanding down, before I cleaned it off and gave it a light wipe with 3 in 1 oil.
Why?
Well having cleaned up / restored some period art deco bakelite handles for my home, I read somewhere that it was good for the bakelite, kind of like 'feeding' it. Don't ask me but it works for the handles in the house........
I then gave it a polish with some Autosol, which is usually excellent for cleaning / polishing bakelite items (as my black bakelite '50s telephones can testify to).
However I felt I needed something else with the steering wheel, something more 'fluid' that I could wipe round it, so to speak. And I came up with this marble polish that I had left over from when I reinstated my bedroom fireplace (cast iron bedroom fireplace, marble hearth):
It wipes round and polishes the steering wheel a treat.
Below are the repairs themselves:
The other day, much to my annoyance, I discovered some fresh cracking to my 'good' steering wheel, caused I suspect by my steering lock (some homemade padding required there methinks.....). So, as the cracks were small and I have read up about doing this before I decided to have a go fixing them with some Araldite resin, whilst the steering wheel is removed from the car, ironically, so it doesn't get damaged whilst refurbishment / welding is going on......
Anyway, I set about repairing this one and noticed after that I had mixed too much up and had a large quantity left over, so I eyed up the original wheel hiding behind the chairs in the living room, badly cracked and, I thought, beyond the abilities of a 'back street tinkerer' like me and decided "why not?"........
I have mentioned this steering wheel before, in another post, enquiring about getting the frame stripped and remade, however for those who didn't see that, this is the damaged wheel 'before':
- Cracked bakelite steering wheel 1.JPG (644.15 KiB) Viewed 1583 times
- Cracked bakelite steering wheel 2.JPG (661.12 KiB) Viewed 1583 times
- Cracked bakelite steering wheel 3.JPG (629.12 KiB) Viewed 1583 times
Why?
Well having cleaned up / restored some period art deco bakelite handles for my home, I read somewhere that it was good for the bakelite, kind of like 'feeding' it. Don't ask me but it works for the handles in the house........
I then gave it a polish with some Autosol, which is usually excellent for cleaning / polishing bakelite items (as my black bakelite '50s telephones can testify to).
However I felt I needed something else with the steering wheel, something more 'fluid' that I could wipe round it, so to speak. And I came up with this marble polish that I had left over from when I reinstated my bedroom fireplace (cast iron bedroom fireplace, marble hearth):
- Series 2 steering wheel repairs 5.JPG (850.19 KiB) Viewed 1583 times
- Series 2 steering wheel after repairs.JPG (1.2 MiB) Viewed 1583 times
