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May 28, 2023
Steering Wheel
The steering wheel is sort of the focal point of the interior of a
car. It is often an important style element, and some folks spend a
lot of money on upscale aftermarket wheels.
I had originally planned to make a wheel similar to the one for my
TR6. I like that wheel, but sometimes think that with the wood
dash, it might be a little too much wood.
This is the original steering wheel for this GT6. This type of
wheel with the metal rod spokes has earned the name "banjo wheel", I
guess because of the suggestion of a four string banjo.
Banjo wheels of various designs were used for many British sports cars
of this era and earlier, including Triumph, MG, and Austin Healy among
others. TR Triumphs up through the TR4 sported banjo wheels.
By the late 60s, Triumph designers must have thought the design had run
its course. Though the TR250 an d GT6 cars still had banjo
wheels, the spokes and central hub were covered with a three-armed vinyl
covered foam piece. It's also possible that US crash safety
requirements may have made the change necessary. This picture of
the TR250/early GT6 wheel was lifted without permission from one of the
Triumph online forums.
I remember having that foam piece, but it had deteriorated so badly,
that I tossed it out decades ago. I'm not sure they are available
today, which is OK, since I really like the banjo style better anyway.
My wheel was really in pretty OK shape (other than missing the foam
cover), but looked sort of ratty. I blasted the hub, protecting
the spokes with tape.
And gave it a nice tasteful black satin paint job.
I had assumed that the rim was just molded plastic, but on a closer
look, it appeared to be actual stitched vinyl cover (or a pretty good
fake).
Though I think I could have cleaned up the rim well enough to use, I
really wanted to do something more. First, I really prefer a
little fatter wheel. It just feels better in my hand.
Second, I thought a little coordination with the rest of the car
interior would look nice. I decided to cover the rim with the same
leather used elsewhere in the interior.
There are quite a few stitching styles used for this application, but
being a first-timer, I settled in one of the simplest. It's called
the baseball stitch for obvious reasons, and I actually like it better
than most of the more complicated ones.
The only thing left to do was address the central hub. Without the
original foam piece, it looked unfinished. Well, 3D printer to
the rescue. A simple CAD design, and a few print iterations.
These are the first two of three total.
I printed the final one in finer quality, then did some post work to refine the surface.
One more piece of the puzzle.
This was a fun one. The hand stitching was one of those things
where just when you start to finally get a rhythm going, you're
done. Cost was essentially zero.
Comments to Ed at elhollin1@yahoo.com
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