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Doing another Navigator steering wheel swap like I did on my excursion a number of years ago.
I decided to go black in color. The brown wood color did not look good to me. The color contrast was too much. So I sanded down the wood part and darkened it up.
Here are the results….I think it came out pretty nice. Oh and it was originally grey in color.
I really like the way it turned out. you can see the wood grain pretty good when your up close. The darker color goes well with the updated black.
Going to try and get it installed today. I think I have everything I need for the work. Going to swap out the clock spring with the one from the navigator so I will need to re-pin the connector under the column.
Ok, so I put in the repaired steering wheel from what I posted up earlier in this thread into my truck. It looks great but I find out something is wrong with the clock spring. The airbag light blinks with 3-2. This indicates an issue with the clock spring. So I make my way to the pick in pull today to get another one and for some other parts for a members (Handsome Bob) lift swap. As I am browsing all the Lincoln Navigators...I come across the holy grail of the steering wheel swaps. There is a Lincoln Blackwood in the pick n pull so yup....I grabbed that steering wheel as fast as I could.
Not the best picture but its the black on blackish wood steering wheel.
Blackwood steering wheel
The pictures don't look that far off from the one I made vs this original one but up close the wood part is very different. So I will put this one in the truck sometime this week.
New Timken Hub went in on the passenger side after the original started making noise on a trip from Texas to Florida at 119K miles. I have a feeling I will be doing the drivers side relatively soon as well along with more suspension related things since it is all original.
Timken is always good.
I would try and replace everything with OEM, like Timken.
I would suggest, if you have the steering wheel play, is to replace the steering shaft with a Borgeson. This eliminates the old, worn-out rag joint with a steel knuckle. I got mine at Summit Racing.
PSC, supposedly, has a really good steering box. I’ve tried Red Head, Ford Motorcraft and now, Blue Top. We’ll see how far the Blue Top lasts.
Today, she lives on in spirit through my F250:
P.S. - the Super Duty forum sucks compared to the Ex forum. It seems you either get no response or 50 “my dad’s step uncle’s best friend from college tried xyz I think once back in ‘04 and blah blah blah”. Thanks to all of you who make this segment of FTE special.
Successfully installed the Blackwood steering wheel but looks like I got shafted with another bad clockspring. I will need to go back to the picknpull and grab another one. I will bring my volt meter this time so I can test it prior to bringing it home.
Successfully installed the Blackwood steering wheel but looks like I got shafted with another bad clockspring. I will need to go back to the picknpull and grab another one. I will bring my volt meter this time so I can test it prior to bringing it home.
More than likely the pinout will be different on any non Excursion wheel. Maybe study the wire colors, positions, and plug.
Successfully installed the Blackwood steering wheel but looks like I got shafted with another bad clockspring. I will need to go back to the picknpull and grab another one. I will bring my volt meter this time so I can test it prior to bringing it home.
For me I get the air bag light blinking. It blinks 3 times then a pause and blinks 2 more times. This indicates an error code of 32. For others the horn, cruse control or stereo buttons don’t work.
Everything else works from a clock spring perspective so I am sure the re-pinning I did is correct. The wiring for the air bag is a separate connector and there is no change for that one.
as I mentioned I took my other bad clock spring and tested the continuity of the airbag wiring through the clock spring and it failed. I tested it on my original one and it ohm’d out good so I am sure that it’s the clock spring. I will go and pull the others at the junk yard and test the wiring to make sure it’s good before purchase.
Tim M
Picked up a set of '04 18" KR wheels locally for a good price with the intention of using one as a full size spare to kind of match the 18" SVT wheels I have on the excursion now. need to get rid of stock excursion rims before I go spend $200 on a new tire lol
10-28-2023, 10:23 AM
