Apr 08 2010
Fifth wheel
Somewhere along the way I decided that the ’51 needed a cool steering wheel. The stock one was good at pointing the truck but it was big and ugly. Did I mention that it was ugly?
I was thinking about a wheel like the one that was in my first car a ’57 Lincoln Premier. It had lots of chrome, black and white two tone and a really neat emblem in the center. After a brief internet search I found a picture of one and discovered that the years had improved the look of the wheel in my memory. Sometimes you don’t want to look at cherished memories too closely. The Lincoln wheel did have lots of chrome and a neato emblem but it was almost as big as the truck wheel.
Sometime in the mid ‘60s steering wheels got smaller and went to the soft rim racing type. Since that wasn’t the art deco ‘50s look that I was after and the local pick your part didn’t have anything old enough it was off to the old car junkyard.
The old car junkyard is an interesting place. They will allow you to adopt parts if they happen to be open and are in a good mood. Oh yeah, you also have to bring enough cash to cover the adoption fee.
It was a good day when I got there, at least it wasn’t raining, the junkyard was open and they even allowed me to wander around unescorted. This was a rare privilege I assure you. Of course it helped that I brought a friend that they knew and he vouched for me.
I wandered around for most of the afternoon and looked at a couple hundred possible steering wheels. Eventually I narrowed my search to late ‘50s to early ‘60s full size GM cars. The problem was that after 50 years or so in the sun the plastic on most of them was in pretty sorry shape.
Eventually I found a steering wheel and column in a ’61 four door Cadillac. Although the rim had cracks the assembly was complete and the plastic was not powdering to dust. The chrome had a few pits but was serviceable. After looking at really bad wheels all afternoon I was happy to find one that was at least decent.
The junkyard folks “only” wanted $100 for the column and steering wheel based on the fact that “they aren’t making them anymore, ya know”. Now understand that I’m not allowed to touch that much money let alone carry it around. The junkyard people won’t take any kind of plastic but pointed out that there was an ATM less than a mile away and it wouldn’t close for another half hour.
Ten minutes later money changed hands. They then allowed me to remove the steering column myself. This was made easier due to the fact the steering box had already been removed so I didn’t have disconnect the steering joint. Sometime after I got home I figured out that it also meant that I didn’t have a steering joint, rats.
The steering wheel is two tone blue with a matching color column so after fixing the cracks I will have to paint it to match the truck. I also plan to make a GMC emblem to replace the existing Cadillac emblem. This should be an interesting adventure, stay tuned!
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