My steering wheel has a lot of cracks and gaps . Is there some kind of epoxy that I can fill them in with or something else . Or do I need a new wheel ? I tried a site search and cam up empty .

 

POR 15 makes a steering wheel repair kit, but it's $$$$. JB weld will work too, but none of them will be permanent if the wheel flexes very much.

 

Eastwood recommends PC-7 epoxy.

Steering Wheel Restoration - Steering Wheel Repair - Tips From Eastwood

I'm still working on my chassis so haven't used it yet, so I cannot vouch for results.

-Stephen

 

I've used body filler and JB weld, both with success on tractor steering wheels. A couple coats of black paint and they look good.

 

Leather steering wheel cover, $20 and 10 minutes....

 

What Ross said. I like the covers. They seem to minimize the road shock feedback you can feel in the steering wheel with these old mechanical steering trucks.
Both of the wheels shown have been repaired with body filler. Not a show truck to be found, both drivers.

 

I used the POR 15 kit on my 55 about 10 years ago and it has held up perfectly.

 

I made a smaller than stock 47 caddy steeing wheel with duraglass, worked fine and is holding up fine. Cracks should be an easy fill.

 

I bought lots of tubes of JB Weld a few years ago to fix the wheel on my 54 after I researched how to do it. It seemed pretty straight forward, but I wasn't sure how I could replicate the grooves on the cross members. So I waited awhile putting it off when I found a good used one on eBay for $54 with no cracks. I put it on. The old one came off quite easily, relativity speaking, without a puller. And now my old wheel that had my Grandpa's (and Grandma's and uncles') dirt stained farmers hands on it now proudly hangs as garage art on the wall of my garage.

Before this I too had a cover on my wheel. It was a but small so I used a hairdryer to heat it up to stretch it on. So a cover could be a quick temp fix.

 

George Hartman did an excellent job on my 56f250 steering wheel and I think he spoke about it on earls world. I have done 3 my self, and used jb weld and allmetal.

 

Nice to see the truckstock magnet on your dash Ray .

 

I used a quality epoxy filler to fix up the wheel of my '53. I did everything right..all was well cleaned, cracks were completely filled. It sanded out well, and I put a good quality black enamel over all. It looked great. Then, life got in the way of my project, and the wheel was stored away until I could find the time and $ to resume work. About 7 years have passed. And that shiny steering wheel has cracks again. Theye are small right now, but I expect them to grow. I've seen stock wheels with 1/4" cracks. My own were about 1/8" when I made the repairs. So, I can assume that the wheel (bakelite?) is continuing to shrink. I don't know if it's the original material or if my epoxy patches that are shrinking. Probably both. But, whichever... my votes for a nice leather steering wheel cover.