Page Fifty-Nine - The Nut Holding the Steering Wheel

 

(I’m the nut.)

Compared to the pics I have seen online, Alphie’s steering wheel is in pretty good nick, not to say that it’s in good shape.  Like most Alpine wheels, the Bakelite hub has a shrinkage crack running all the way down one side, a gaping chasm to be honest.

Explanatory Ramble:

Bakelite is a hard synthetic polymer that often uses wood flour as a filler (in the past asbestos was sometimes the filler, so be careful), which is hygroscopic, an impressive word that means it absorbs water from the air.  The wood flour expands and contracts with temperature and humidity changes, but Bakelite doesn’t.  Bakelite is hard, and if you have ever dropped it or tried to pry it lose, you know that it is quite brittle.  The metal hub under the Bakelite also expands and contracts with temperature, in short - expand/contract + hard and brittle = gaping fissures over time.

An unused NOS Alpine steering wheel left on a shelf these past 60+ years, would probably have some cracking.  Virtually all Sunbeamers face this problem.

Before - the parts at the start

Before - the warped and cracked original hub
with Eric's Restoration Hub*

Hub Restoration:

Method A: Head to your favorite home improvement store and get some JB Weld (the two-part putty version works best) and sculpt it like molding clay to fill the cracks and chipped off pieces.  Next, sand, file, refill, sand, file sand until you get it to shape and smooth.

Pros – cheap and readily available.  Cons – doggedly labor intensive and the results depend on your skills as a sculptor and how bad your hub was before you started.  Mine was warped off-center a bit, so the results would have only been “meh” at best.

Method B: Jump on the Sunbeam Alpine Owners Club of America’s (SAOCA) forum and find 65sunbeam (more on him below*); he sells a two-piece replacement hub made of Delrin, a far less problematic plastic used in a kajillion applications.

Pros – dead simple, looks brilliant and original.  Cons – a bit pricey.

I opted for Method B, and I think it’s more than worth the price. 

To close up the gap between the two pieces of the restoration hub,
I had to Dremel some cutouts to clear the steering wheel spokes.

I didn't get them perfectly aligned,
but they are mostly hidden under the horn ring anyway

Plastic Dying:

Bakelite fades to a weird brownish color over time and the steering wheel plastic had oxidized and had small spider webby lines running through it.  The interwebs says that India ink or leather dye work well as plastic dyes.  I do leatherwork, so leather dye it is.

The "test" cowl before dying.  The Bakelite turns a splotchy brown with age.

And leather dye is the bomb!  Check out the pics.

The unbroken cowl after dying and a light coat of clear paint.
It looks better than the pic shows. 
Bad photographer with a so-so camera.

I have a broken steering cowl (the casing where the turn indicator and overdrive switch mount), so I tested the dye on it.  It renews the Bakelite’s original black; the color looks great, but the shine is uneven.

On the unbroken steering cowl, I used leather dye but added a coat of clear paint to even out the shine, and with some shiny stainless screws, it looks spanking!

Steering Wheel:

First, I broke off the old Bakelite hub and sand blasted and painted the rusty steel hub underneath.

The plastic on the steering wheel itself, the part you grab, is more flexible than the hub, meaning it isn’t Bakelite.  I sanded it with 600 followed by 1000 grit sandpaper to remove what appears to oxidation.  It was a weird yellowish color. 

The rusty hub under the Bakelite hub

Alphie’s wheel only has one small crack, which I easily filled with a two-part epoxy.  I deepened the crack a bit with a small file so that the epoxy would have something to grip and be substantial enough to stay put, let it cure and sanded it smooth.

Bead blasted hub with Bakelite debris

The leather dye restored the color nicely, but like the cowl, the finish was uneven.  Curiously, the dye didn’t penetrate the epoxy leaving it clear, or at least, the color difference left the crack visible even though I can’t feel it.  I shot the wheel with some black spray paint.  I scrubbed the paint a smidge with a polishing compound and it evened out the shine.  It’s cracking! Much better than I had hoped – I love happy accidents.

The wheel had one crack, which I filled with a two-part epoxy.
(I painted the steel hub black too.)

Sanded and dyed.  Note that the epoxy didn't absorb the dye
the same as the wheel plastic - that's why I had to
apply a coat of glossy black paint.

The Horn Ring:

The horn rings - one with a good wire and bad everything else.
One with good everything else and a bad wire.

A case of combine and conquer.  The horn ring from the Organ Donor was broken, completely unusable, but it had a good wire.  Alphie’s was in decent nick, but someone cut the wire.  Easy enough fix – drill out the rivets and move the good wire to the good horn ring.

While I was mucking about, I bead-blasted all the parts that make the horn blow and repainted and shined up the horn ring itself, bada bing bada boom!

Before shot of the horn rings.
The yellow arrows show the rivets that must be
drilled out to remove and reattach the horn wire.

Cleaned, shined, and painted.
I used screws (stainless of course) instead of rivets
to reattach the wire and connector ring

*The Gibeaut Hub, A Rining Endorsement:

Eric Gibeaut, known as “65sunbeam” on eBay and the SAOCA forums, sells the restoration hub I used.  Eric put in the work to perfect his hub, which explains the price he asks.  The hub looks like it came with the car, uses metal threaded inserts for the screws, no short cuts, and is dead simple to install.  It’s better than new!  There is no better fix than Eric’s hub!

He offers a discount to SAOCA members, so message him on the forum.  Ebay requires fees, so it’s cheaper to go through SAOCA

An after pic of the wheel, horn ring and cowl.
So much better than I had hoped for!

A closeup of Eric's Restoration Hub in place.
The fit and finish are perfect!

A pic showing how well the steering wheel turned out.
Again, it looks better than the pic. The color is great, and it shines
without being too shiny - absolutely love it.