My '95 has seen a lot of years in the hot Texas sun, and the original leather on the steering wheel was pretty much beat. It had gotten chalky/rough and extremely unpleasant to handle while driving.
I searched the forum looking for replacement options, and saw at the high end some of you were paying $350+ for a company to professionally re-finish the wheel, and at the low end others were using Wheelskins leather wraps. I'm not made of money, so I initially went for the Wheelskins option, and found a kit for around $55 plus tax on Amazon. Just as I was about to check out, I noticed a similar product under "things other people bought after looking at this."
Here it is, for $14.32 as I write this:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00029KA8G?tag=ihco-20
Looks like an off-brand copy of Wheelskins' product. Just in case the link goes dead in the future, this is the title of the item:
Superior 58-0600B Superskin Steering Wheel Cover, Genuine Leather, Size "B", Black
They had a gray and tan version too, and my original wheel is gray, but it's a much darker gray than the one pictured on Amazon. I went for the black, because a lot of the dash trim in my cruiser is black, so why not? I measured my wheel's circumference and it seemed to match Size B on their chart.
This came out to a little over $15 with tax and 2 day shipping (Amazon Prime).
I got it in this afternoon and immediately got it out and went to work on it. Here are photos of what comes in the kit:
In the little plastic bag is a bunch of woven nylon thread and two giant needles. The leather felt pretty nice and the grain was pretty consistent. I'm not sure how it could have been any better. I don't know 100% that it's real leather, but the packaging certainly said it was, and it could have fooled me, a non-leather-working expert.
Just from looking at the illustrations in the instructions, I decided to go with the straight stitch.
The first thing to do is get the leather stretched around the wheel. It's sized a little small, so you gotta wrestle with it a bit to get the leather over the wheel, which is good because it makes sure everything stays nice and tight.
This step is important, you want to get the seams where you want them. I actually made mine a little off center by mistake. Oops. It won't bother me, though, and I'm not gonna do it again until this wheel cover starts to fall apart.
It took some time for me to get the hang of lacing this thing up. The pre-punched holes in the leather are small, and can be difficult to find. I found myself moving around a lot to look at the wheel from front and back to make sure I was getting the needle in the right hole (giggity).
The biggest challenge early on is that there's SO much thread you have to pull through each time, I kept getting it tangled up and caught on things like the e-brake lever and even the passenger side seat belt. This gets easier as you use up more and more thread. After some trial and error you kinda figure out how tight you gotta make each loop of the thread, and how tight the leather will hold the loops. My advice would be to not tighten the loop down until you're sure it's in the right place. Back tracking can be a real pain in the rear because you gotta pull the thread out and put it through the eye of the needle again.
You'll probably do this at least a few times -- getting the thread through the needle is easiest if you take the thread and fold it over and just kinda smush it through the eye of the needle as best you can until some is sticking out on the other side. You can grab that with your fingers and pull it through easily after that.
More in the next post (attachment limit)
I searched the forum looking for replacement options, and saw at the high end some of you were paying $350+ for a company to professionally re-finish the wheel, and at the low end others were using Wheelskins leather wraps. I'm not made of money, so I initially went for the Wheelskins option, and found a kit for around $55 plus tax on Amazon. Just as I was about to check out, I noticed a similar product under "things other people bought after looking at this."
Here it is, for $14.32 as I write this:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00029KA8G?tag=ihco-20
Looks like an off-brand copy of Wheelskins' product. Just in case the link goes dead in the future, this is the title of the item:
Superior 58-0600B Superskin Steering Wheel Cover, Genuine Leather, Size "B", Black
They had a gray and tan version too, and my original wheel is gray, but it's a much darker gray than the one pictured on Amazon. I went for the black, because a lot of the dash trim in my cruiser is black, so why not? I measured my wheel's circumference and it seemed to match Size B on their chart.
This came out to a little over $15 with tax and 2 day shipping (Amazon Prime).
I got it in this afternoon and immediately got it out and went to work on it. Here are photos of what comes in the kit:
In the little plastic bag is a bunch of woven nylon thread and two giant needles. The leather felt pretty nice and the grain was pretty consistent. I'm not sure how it could have been any better. I don't know 100% that it's real leather, but the packaging certainly said it was, and it could have fooled me, a non-leather-working expert.
Just from looking at the illustrations in the instructions, I decided to go with the straight stitch.
The first thing to do is get the leather stretched around the wheel. It's sized a little small, so you gotta wrestle with it a bit to get the leather over the wheel, which is good because it makes sure everything stays nice and tight.
This step is important, you want to get the seams where you want them. I actually made mine a little off center by mistake. Oops. It won't bother me, though, and I'm not gonna do it again until this wheel cover starts to fall apart.
It took some time for me to get the hang of lacing this thing up. The pre-punched holes in the leather are small, and can be difficult to find. I found myself moving around a lot to look at the wheel from front and back to make sure I was getting the needle in the right hole (giggity).
The biggest challenge early on is that there's SO much thread you have to pull through each time, I kept getting it tangled up and caught on things like the e-brake lever and even the passenger side seat belt. This gets easier as you use up more and more thread. After some trial and error you kinda figure out how tight you gotta make each loop of the thread, and how tight the leather will hold the loops. My advice would be to not tighten the loop down until you're sure it's in the right place. Back tracking can be a real pain in the rear because you gotta pull the thread out and put it through the eye of the needle again.
You'll probably do this at least a few times -- getting the thread through the needle is easiest if you take the thread and fold it over and just kinda smush it through the eye of the needle as best you can until some is sticking out on the other side. You can grab that with your fingers and pull it through easily after that.
More in the next post (attachment limit)
I was just thinking this morning that my s/w was looking pretty crappy, this would help.
would make the final product really tight!
