Steering Wheel Replacement?

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Miescha

Miescha

Joined
Jan 12, 2006
Threads
124
Messages
1,109
Location
St. Louis, MO
OK, I've searched through the archives and read the articles on recovering my 1996 FZJ80 steering wheel with either American Stiching in Dallas, TX or the group buy company in Florida (forgot the name). The dealer wants around $600-900 for a new wheel (withOUT the airbag). So before I dive in for the recovering, I thought I would see if there is any new info for this topic since the threads I found were all at least one year old.

I did notice that there are a TON of wheels available via online auctions for around $250. All have new leather and some even have wood (seems like it might last longer than the leather on the top 'heavy use' portion of the wheel). However, none are for the 80s. Soooo, I'm wondering if anyone knows whether other toyota / lexus wheels will work (other than the LX450)?

I did read the thread on liability and warnings on not changing / mixing wheels and airbags from different models, so I consider myself warned in that regard.

Thanks for any help for this original owner trying to keep my 10-year-old 80 looking new.
 
Have you checked TRD?

TRD in Japan carries steering wheels for Toyota rigs with airbags.

Here are (small) pics of the one(s) that are compatible with airbag (It says that they are not for vehicles with cruise control though).

It costs about the same/less than what your saying that the dealer wants for the OEM unit, but with a little bling. ;)

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There's always the OEM non leather wheel, which should run a smart shopper about $325. It's like the leather wheel, only it's plastic.
 
Have you tried refinishing it on the vehicle? I had a leather one that actually sat without a windshield for a year in Portland. It looked like hell. I pulled it off and took it to a local saddlery. The guy cleaned it up and then redyed it and put some sort of finish on it. It looked better than new. I didn't keep it for myself. I gave it to a friend for use in his 62. This was a 94. But I'm sure you could do just the same process with your newer model.
 
Great idea - but sadly, one I already tried. I did this last year when it first started to look really bad. I checked with multiple local auto upolstery places and a few leather "saddlery" shops. I chose one in the end based on their reputation and the work they did on the steering wheel and auto-shift-knob looked pretty darn good. But alas, a year later and the dye is gone and the leather looks worse than when I started.

I'm leaning toward having the wheel "refinished" with new (and hopefully better) leather. I would love to change to one of the Lexus or newer Toyota wheels with real wood as I think it might hold up better and would be easier for me to keep looking nice in the future.

Thanks again for the very good idea!
 
here is a pic of a LX450 bag, it does not look compatible with the 100 series bag pictured above, the 80 does not have the extra grounding connector, and the main connector looks different, the LX450 (and I assume 80 series LC?) have a flip down secondary lock, the one above appears to have some kind of sliding secondary lock.

The LX450 has an extra pair of wires passing through the spiral cable for the phone controls making the wheel harness different from a 80 series LC, also the bag has the "L" on it, I do not know if there are any other changes in the bag and wheel.

The 100 series wood wheels do look nice IMO, would be nice if they could be swapped somehow, maybe you can use the 80 series bag, CC stalk and harness on a 100 series wheel? They sure do look similar.

how much can you get a 100 series wheel for, cheap enough to risk winding up with a paper weight if it does not work?

are there any model year changes in the wheel of the 100 searies? ie how many diffrent wheels are we looking at
DriversBack.webp
 
Here is a shot of a '01 lx470 and a '04. If you look close you will see they are not shaped the same. The pre '03 wheels are the same shape as the 80 series, but as Raven pointed out the air bag and mounts are not the same. I had planed to find a pre '03 lx470 wood wheel to adapt to my 80 series and re-use my air bag. However, it looks like this may not work as well as I had hoped but nothing is impossible.
 
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Great shots (and info). Next question I guess, will that fancy wood auto-shift knob fit my '96 FZJ80? It sure looks like the same buttons on the left side, and the wood would likely outlast any 'new' leather I could have put on.
 
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