Custom made steering wheel.

Janis

Janis

True Classic
As some of You maybe have noticed, am in process of making a copy of Abarth Boomerang steering wheel for myself.

To cover back my investment into mold am offering to You a opportunity to order a personalized steering wheel.

Till I don't have the mold and am not sure on the costs of it:
•outside diameter of the wheel should be 350mm
•thickness of the ring 28mm+leather=~30mm
•offset is up to You
•PCD and centrer bore is up to You
•design of the wheel is also up to You
(if You ar not familiar with drawing programms, You can send me just a sketch and I will make a drawing)
Ring will be made from 16x1.5 or 16x2mm aluminium tube, and 5mm thick aluminium for the sheet, TIG welded together, material of the foam is not decided yet.

Total costs of one wheel definitely won't exceed 150€+shipping

Pre payment is NOT needed, before the wheel is made.

*in picture You can see what I am making for myself
*color anodized aluminium is an option

Janis

D1C7299B-6757-4146-9B8B-330427F9E942.jpegAA531C21-060F-4F9D-97D8-C9D31AB8B417.jpeg
 
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Very cool project. And the price is excellent for a totally custom designed, brand new steering wheel made to your specs. 👍

Just curious, what's the possibility of also offering it with a larger overall rim diameter - say around 380mm? I realize that would require a different center section so it might not be feasible to do.
 
Didn't think of this previously - if I will find decent type and dimension of foam or rubber tube, it would be a lot easier and cheaper to use than to pour material into mold...and flexibility to make any size

*as sometimes I like to do things sooner than it is needed - didn't have access to TIG today, so this is stick welded. Also first puppy has it's imperfections and few mistakes.
19AC937D-6BDC-4B6D-93AA-2BA452AD3BB5.jpegD32F4DBA-E84E-4B91-8268-3FDA7E446F3F.jpeg72DEB8F4-B73D-46E4-86A5-C25F11C59F2F.jpeg509CD2E2-47E4-419E-94A4-2F6FCE4E3801.jpeg
 
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I love that asymmetric design!

I just restored my wooden Victor Corsa wheel that came with the car. The wheel has finger grooves around the rim. I wonder what the process it to make these out of wood. Obviously a different few steps and probably more hours thus higher costs but then you could get the finger impressions for added grip. Or someone could sand and polish and cost the wheel to fit their hands. This could make a vintage looking wheel with the comfort of the modern palm/thumb depressions.
 
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Great job, I love seeing an artist at work. Let me know when you finish one with your TiG welder and I might volunteer. I would be interested in a 13" or 330mm. While we are on this subject what hub does the x1/9 use? 124 or 850 compatible?
 
Tig welded batch should be finished next week, I hope.

Diameter is not fixed anymore, it is up to Your taste.

Stainless steel is also an option, that I would prefer to work with.

Wooden ones even with finger grooves as Andrew mentioned are also possible.

*have no idea about hubs, haven't seen any 124 or 850 in real life.
 
mkmini said:
Tig welded batch should be finished next week, I hope.

Diameter is not fixed anymore, it is up to Your taste.

Stainless steel is also an option, that I would prefer to work with.

Wooden ones even with finger grooves as Andrew mentioned are also possible.

*have no idea about hubs, haven't seen any 124 or 850 in real life.
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How are you at working with wood? I am not a potential buyer but had just restored mine down to bare wood and sanding smooth and this post got me thinking. I watched a few videos on creating wooden wheels. It looks like a router is the most helpful tool but with finger grips that wouldn’t necessary apply to all 4 corners of the circular cross section. It looks like it could be a lot more work vs the leather cover so consider the hours required before keeping that same price IMO.

I also didn’t see any videos that sandwiches the wheel spokes inside the wood like mine is and most of the pics posted on the “Everything Fiat 124” FB page this week. I think that would require cut outs to either match the small diameter steel rim or spoke flats. All the ones in videos didn’t have the full steel wheel but just the spokes, but the spokes were only screwed to the back face of the wheel (away from driver).

It looks like a lot of work but man would it look cool!

If I had a cracked generic wheel I would definitely work with you to get something worked out with that very unique Abarth center. 👌
 
tobydmv said:
While we are on this subject what hub does the x1/9 use? 124 or 850 compatible?
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There are some other Fiat models with hubs that fit the X1/9 and accept one of the two most common steering wheel mounting bolt patterns (6 hole). I believe early 124's is one, but someone else can add better details than me. The nice thing is they are a direct fit so the turn signal cancel, horn contact, etc, all still work. And they are available (used) for a reasonable cost. In addition there are some aftermarket hubs to fit the X1/9, but I believe they might be a little harder to find? Because I'm not sure if they are still being made?
 
AKimball92 said:
I also didn’t see any videos that sandwiches the wheel spokes inside the wood like mine is
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That's how many of the early wood rimmed wheels were made (if I'm understanding you correctly). Not the best picture but you might see the metal ring that is in the middle of the two wood grips:
dce264f6-5ca5-11e6-9bef-84797e94fd6d.jpg
 
I have been working in furniture industry (mostly chairs) for ~17years, from them ~12 mainly with wood. These numbers of course means nothing, maybe only that my personal fun and experience is less working with wood.
 
Dr.Jeff said:
That's how many of the early wood rimmed wheels were made (if I'm understanding you correctly). Not the best picture but you might see the metal ring that is in the middle of the two wood grips:
View attachment 34437
Click to expand...
@mkmini please state of this is helping or if this is taking away from your thread. Delete if you prefer. This wheel here looks really cool and could imagine it with your center design. However I would personally do just the metal ring and leave the wood to the buyer. Almost all wood work can be done by anyone with hands, no tools needed, just time. Reduce cost proportionally as needed.

Or you could do the wood and more power to you! The metal ring around the inside is pretty schweet and very similar to your process. Instead of a tube it’s a flat plate. Those metal rivets, I don’t even have a clue how those are made.
 
AKimball92 said:
The metal ring around the inside is pretty schweet and very similar to your process. Instead of a tube it’s a flat plate.
Click to expand...
Exactly. In fact the metal 'ring' (in between the two wood halves) is part of the middle portion; it's all one piece - center and ring are made from a flat sheet material (no tubular hoop, no welding). But to make it a "dished" wheel (center portion drops deeper), you would have to use a press to bend (depress) the center while leaving the 'ring' flat for the wood to attach to. That would require some sort of mandrel made with the same diameter and dish for each size/shape of wheel. Maybe not too practical for a limited production custom designed steering wheel. But if you made it without any dish (completely flat, center and rim - like the one in the picture I posted), then that would be easy to do.
 
Janis said:
As some of You maybe have noticed, am in process of making a copy of Abarth Boomerang steering wheel for myself.

To cover back my investment into mold am offering to You a opportunity to order a personalized steering wheel.

Till I don't have the mold and am not sure on the costs of it:
•outside diameter of the wheel should be 350mm
•thickness of the ring 28mm+leather=~30mm
•offset is up to You
•PCD and centrer bore is up to You
•design of the wheel is also up to You
(if You ar not familiar with drawing programms, You can send me just a sketch and I will make a drawing)
Ring will be made from 16x1.5 or 16x2mm aluminium tube, and 5mm thick aluminium for the sheet, TIG welded together, material of the foam is not decided yet.

Total costs of one wheel definitely won't exceed 150€+shipping

Pre payment is NOT needed, before the wheel is made.

*in picture You can see what I am making for myself
*color anodized aluminium is an option

Janis

View attachment 34247View attachment 34248
Click to expand...

Hello, bumping this thread... Are you still making steering wheels ?
 
kmead said:
Interesting. There have been several posts of his which have resurfaced of late at the hands of other members.

So there we are, I am wrong. Again :)
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haha some might be me... I have been searching a lot of cool bertone design parts on the forum.
I always found some neat posts about someone making custom vintage parts, and the prices look decent as well.

Anyway regarding the steering wheels... when I see this I wanna cry, it belongs to a Bertone car !
https://www.reddit.com/r/E30/comments/qsp61e/just_installed_this_nos_nuccio_bertone_steering

It looks neat to any car lets be honest so I think someone could sell them for good money.
 
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