New Steering Wheel

[Jerry Winchester]

Well I finally succumbed to lewpop disease and decided to replace my old steering wheel. I have a steering wheel puller in my tool box, but I wanted to check with anyone who had done this to see if there were any Indian tricks I needed to know? I have done this several times on my Scout, but don't recall ever having done it on a truck sized wheel.

Are any / many of the coach fasteners metric? Horn button issues?

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Jerry,

The wheels may vary, but my 1987 had a series of allen screws around the outside of the center horn button and removing them removed the wheel.

The manual for my 97 says to turn off power to the bus and use a flat bladed screw driver to pry off the horn cap. Then remove the screws holding the center of the cap and black wire. It sounds like the cap has wires for the horn that need to be removed.

Then remove the steering wheel nut and use a wheel puller to pop the steering wheel off.

There may be other variations but I hope this helps.

Jon

[lewpopp]

Yes I did change over to a beautiful steering wheel. It matches my laminated dash.

I ran into a problem after the wheel was put on. First of all, Parliament Coach put it on because I didn't have a puller. I don't think they did either because when I was entering the coach the service manager was holding up on the old wheel while someone was tapping down on the loosened center bolt. Cripes, I could have done that with a buddy helping.

I later wanted to straighten the wheel and I removed it again the same way but was not careful and let the shaft fall and it broke the horn button part(nomenclature not known) well, let's explain it this way. the center wire runs down to a point in the steering shaft and attaches to a ring, I think. On the outside behind the rubber fluted cover ther is a button rivited to make contact with the wire in the center shaft (oh how easy this would be if I knew the names of the parts) I broke the button holder and the horn blew when I turned corners.. I drilled out the four 1/8 pop rivits and replaced the button assembly that brings the power in.

Everything is " hunkie dory" now.;) ;)

[Kevin Erion]

I want to update the wheel on my 99XL, The stock wheel reminds me of one I had on a 1990 Kenwoth truck. I like the look of the wheel on an XL II. Can anyone tell me if I can use that on my Bus?
Thanks,
Kevin

[Jerry Winchester]

This is the one I picked to install. I am going to put it on over the weekend, so I will post a photo of the finished installation.

Updated:

This is it installed.

http://jdub.smugmug.com/photos/60832010-M.jpg

[lewpopp]

That looks like the one I installed. It's the one Parliament puts on their new coaches. If I can remember, the diameter is about 2 inches smaller to fit the larger size driver. Ho Ho:D :D

Is it a VIP?

[Jerry Winchester]

Yes it is. Are you back on the road?

[ken&ellen]

New steering wheels.....can fuzzy dice be far behind?
The eight ball shift knob was popular when I was a young lad.
Ken

[Jerry Winchester]

Don't you have some balck (sic) film to clean or something? I have fuzzy dice and some skull and cross bone nut covers holding my chrome Prevost license plate frame to the front bumper:cool:

[lewpopp]

Fuzzy Dice, Bermuda Bells, Squirrel Tails, and stick shift.
VAROOOOOOM, VAROOOOOOM.

Thanks, Jerry for asking. I hope to be finished tomorrow PM. What an ordeal. I asked my wife to download the pictures I took today and she said she didn't have Kodak in the new computer. Crap, and I have a picture of the undercover man sneaking around the neighborhoods.

[Jerry Winchester]

Did you tell her, "Well that's JF Lovely....."?

Hope they don't ding you for a bunch of Lew Bucks while you are there.;)

[Jerry Winchester]

Well that wasn't pretty. When I got all the Allen head machine screws out from around the horn button and pulled it off, the steering wheel came off with it. Seems there is another flanged part that bolts to the splined shaft. So I whip the old nut off with the air impact and proceed to wear a cheap assed puller out trying to pull this thing off.

Then I get serious and go get a good three jawed puller and with a little help from my wife, off the flange comes. Then the stinking horn starts honking by itself. (Insert your own joke about Lew here).

I go trip the breaker for the horn and then disperse the crowd. :rolleyes:

Now nothing wants to fit. The new wheel won't go down on the shaft far enough to get the nut on. I remove the cover from the steering column on the floor and tilt the assembly as far forward as I can. Then with my wife holding the whole thing up, I get it on far enough to get the nut started.

Tightened it up, put the horn button on, put the turn signal cover back on, reset the breaker (no honking) then cleaned the mess up.

Time to write this up - 2 minutes.
Time to get the old wheel off and the new one on - 3 hours.

But with my new tacit knowledge, I could change one out in less than an hour.

[MangoMike]

Jerry,

Now since you're the resident expert in wheel removal, I'm bringing my new wheel to POG in April - get ready!:)

Mike

[Jerry Winchester]

I may have to have a trailer just to bring all the extra parts to Jon. Aren't we storing all our extra/used coach "stuff" in his shop-on-the-hill?

I will set in the mothership eating Mango grub and supervise the steering wheel change-out. Oh, and I will bring the big hammer to whack it. :eek: