Melting leather wrap steering wheel

[Hank]

Thanks to the Florida heat the glue (or padding) beneath the leather on the steering wheel has deteriorated and on hot days melts and oozes all over your hands when driving.

Anyone know if it is just the regular plastic wheel under the leather wrap? No matter what I have to cut the wrap off or change the wheel. Does someone make a decent replacement wrap? Not the old circa 1970 style pep boys junk..

Thanks
hg

 

[BislamJoe]

I imagine that it's just plastic under the wrap. On a side note - I've always thought that it would be cool to get a section of tree trunk a little bigger around than your steering wheel and then fashion one out of that...

 

[FMExplorer]

Hank,
Find the oldest steering wheel you can find - that way it will go with the Army Bauer theme!

J

 

[YetiX]

Having pulled mine apart to restitch it at least five times when the glue melted out (it had to be perfect) I can tell you it is absolutely hard plastic underneath the leather.

If it's in good enough condition to re-use, you can unstitch the old "skin" remove the old glue resiude and then restitch the original skin back on. That will look the best if the skin is in good condition.

The hardest thing for me was finding thread to do it. I finally ended up buying a Wheelskins cover just for the thread (it's this thick, waxed thread). Mine looked great until I decided I needed something thicker and got my FR500 wheel. But that's a story for a different time.

 

[Hank]

YetiX,

Good idea.

Thanks, the leather is in great shape and I'd hate to loose it. What kind of glue did you end up using? And what did you use to clean up the old glue?

I used to have a spool of carpet stitching thread. Good heavy duty black thread which would be perfect for the wrap. Don't know if they still make the stuff anymore.. It was a long time ago..

Thanks again.
hg

 

[JDraper]

I bought a leather cover made by AXXUS for my X steering wheel. It's a stitch on cover (no glue at all) that works quite well. I had the same one on my '92 for about 6 years without any problems. I now have the same on my '01. I think I got it at Wal Mart. The leather one cost about $15-20.

 

[YetiX]

Now that I think about it, when I put it back on I didn't use glue. There was enough tackiness left over from the origianl glue and I didn't want a repeat of the melting. It worked great and didn't slip at all.

In building up my current steering wheel I used this stuff called "Seam Sealer" which is used to repair tents, wetsuits and that sort of stuff. I got it at REI and I know it lasts forever because I've used it to fix all sorts of climbing gear, etc.

BTW, carpet thread sounds like a great idea for stitching and would probably cost less than a Wheelskins cover.

Good luck,