Steering wheel refurb

[Belle427]

Has anyone refurbed their own wheel?
Mine is looking a little faded and slightly worn in places and was wondering has anyone used a kit or product that they could recommend?

[ChimpOnGas]

I've been considering this one myself

My current thinking is to repeat the process I used when I restored my XJS seats last year, I had great success using the products from the Furniture Clinic.

https://www.furnitureclinic.co.uk/

Saying that by its fundamental function a steering wheel sees a lot of handling, the human hand releases a lot of natural oils and sweat can often be quite acidic too. With your hands constantly gripping the leather, the clear coat used will need to be very durable. Furniture Clinic's water based clear coat seems to work well on seat faces, but I wonder if something tougher (solvent based) would be needed on a steering wheel?

The other option I'm going to explore is a recover, I'm going to find out what this guy will charge me to recover my wheel.....

http://royalsteeringwheels.com/

Conveniently he's only 40 minutes from me, all this guy does is recover steering wheels and typically way more complicated modern steering wheels than the simple Personal example on a Chimaera. I've researched reviews of his work and people seem to be universally very happy with the results, looking at what he does I suspect he would not be remotely challenged by the simple wheel we have.

If I do go with a recover I'm quite keen on specifying nappa leather, I have this on the steering wheel of my Audi company car and it's really nice in the hand, the matt waxy finish of nappa leather looks suitably expensive too. So it's really down to cost, and given I've been looking to progress this project for a while now I'll email Royal Steering Wheels now and let you know what he says, we can then see exactly how much more money a recover will be over a DIY restoration.

I'll also factor in the final option which is just to buy a new wheel, a 350mm Personal Grinta in leather is £200 so the recover will need to be suitably cheaper if it's going to compete with simply buying a brand new wheel complete and fitting that..

https://www.driftworks.com/personal-grinta-steerin...

Or how about £180 for a leather 330mm Grinter delivered to your door including VAT

Or spend more on a tatty used one from a TVR breaker

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TVR-CHIMAERA-TVR-GRIFFI...

Watch this space.

Edited by ChimpOnGas on Thursday 18th June 09:13

[e42]

Good timing for me, thanks for the post, I’ve been thinking the same thing. I also have a wood rim Personal wheel I can use while the leather is being refurbished. Maybe muted red stitching to coordinate with the Ruby Mica body colour, or grey to go with the flint interior colour, hmmm...

Dom

[ChimpOnGas]

If there are a few of that need his services perhaps the guy from Royal Steering Wheels will do us a PH TVR Forum group discount?

OK so I've emailed Royal, but there may be a delay in getting a response as this is the message on his website....


Dear Customer,

Royal Steering Wheels is closed till Tuesday 29.06 due to some work being done on site and we are clearing the backlog at the same time .

Please contact us after we are back and we’ll be happy to help.

We’re sorry for any inconvenience this may cause and hope that’s not a problem.

Regards
Royal Steering Wheels team


He's obviously a busy man as he's temporarily pulled down his online order form while he clears a backlog of work.

Edited by ChimpOnGas on Thursday 18th June 09:28

[bobfather]

Mine was done by ex TVR trimmer, Lee at Trim Unique in standard TVR green leather to match my dash top. Lee also thickened the rim prior to reupholstering

http://www.trim-unique.co.uk/

[GR_TVR]

Had mine done by Jack at Royal Steering Wheels - very pleased with it indeed!

[Zener]

Nice work approximate cost please? failing that ill just change the wheel mine is shiny and colour rubbing through

[GR_TVR]

Zener said:

Nice work approximate cost please? failing that ill just change the wheel mine is shiny and colour rubbing through

It was around £180 from memory including postage.

[ChimpOnGas]

GR_TVR said:

Had mine done by Jack at Royal Steering Wheels - very pleased with it indeed!

Nice, it is of course more or less the same price as buying a new Personal Grinta, saying that what you've got there is a part perforated leather custom job which looks, and probably feels, amazing!

[Belle427]

Some nice work there, I don’t think I’d be willing to spend close to £200 personally but I see why they charge that amount.

[bobfather]

Belle427 said:

Some nice work there, I don’t think I’d be willing to spend close to £200 personally but I see why they charge that amount.

I agree it is expensive but it is the only part of the car that is in constant contact with your hands. Having a luxurious and tactile feel to the wheel enhances the driving pleasure, after all, that's why we own these cars. I have a Raid Daytona wheel in my roadster, designed for the Bugatti Veyron and believed by many to be the best wheel ever made. Owning that convinced me to have the Chim wheel reupholstered

[Zener]

GR_TVR said:

Zener said:

Nice work approximate cost please? failing that ill just change the wheel mine is shiny and colour rubbing through

It was around £180 from memory including postage.

Thank you sounds good ill get it done when I put it away at the end of the year

[ChimpOnGas]

bobfather said:

Belle427 said:

Some nice work there, I don’t think I’d be willing to spend close to £200 personally but I see why they charge that amount.

I agree it is expensive but it is the only part of the car that is in constant contact with your hands. Having a luxurious and tactile feel to the wheel enhances the driving pleasure, after all, that's why we own these cars. I have a Raid Daytona wheel in my roadster, designed for the Bugatti Veyron and believed by many to be the best wheel ever made. Owning that convinced me to have the Chim wheel reupholstered

I have agree with both arguments, it's why I remain undecided on if I want to recover or restore the original

There's certainly something very rewarding about giving a component a new lease of life for very little money, the Furniture Clinic products do work exceptionally well and I'd estimate you could restore a Chimaera like this for £40 or less, and it'll come up looking and feeling more or less like new.

A standard Chimaera wheel is not exactly a nasty thing to hold, far from it, Personal who are a division of the legendary Nardi company make excellent quality steering wheels. Saying all that the soft waxy feel of the nappa leather wheel on my modern Audi is lovely in the hands, so I may still treat myself to a nappa recover by Royal.

Bobfather is absolutely right when he talks of the importance of tactile feel, so much of the all important driver experience comes from the controls the driver interacts with, running a TVR can be a pain in the arsh at times but where they never fail to score is on driver involvement. TVR definitely got the steering feel right as they did the ergonomics, but that doesn't mean these elements cant be enhanced still further.

Elements where I've made improvements in this respect range from expensive to cheap as chips, for instance simply removing one of the two main throttle return springs from the linkage makes the throttle action far lighter and way nicer in my opinion, and it costs nothing! My XJS seats hold me in place way better than the flat backed originals, they look right and are supremely comfortable.

The S10 gearbox mod with a Hurst short shift kit works well to remove the wear prone TVR linkage and the larger/heavier all stainless gear knob I fitted is way nicer in the hand. My proper AP 5.0 litre clutch fitted by Mat Smith is a joy to use, on the braking front the Brembo conversion works a treat and Rainsport 3 tyres are light years better than the very old tech wooden Bridgstones the car would have come with from new.

One of my favorites though has to be my Tuscan S spec Mk4 Bilsteins from Ben Lang custom sprung and valved to my gas powered creation, its an over used term but they really do transform the car. Top it all off with a Canems duel fuel engine management system that allows me to map out all the 14CUX bad behaviors, and with a bit of fettling by yours truly she's now smoother than I could have ever hoped for with vastly superior throttle response.

We didn't buy our TVRs because they make a great family car, we own a TVR because we are proper petrol heads who are addicted to that analogue connected driving experience that's been engineered out of every modern car, even most moderns that claim to be sports cars. Feel is everything, and as Bobfather quite rightly points out the one control that your are constantly in contact with is the steering wheel.

To this end, and for driving enthusiasts like us, anything you can do to improve the feel of the wheel in your hands can only be a good thing!

[Zener]

I do like suede though used one for years I have no issues driving with clean hands so the finish stays IME

[ChimpOnGas]

Zener said:

I do like suede though used one for years I have no issues driving with clean hands so the finish stays IME

Lovely Simon, but I don't think that would last five minutes with me

[Zener]

Decided to get mine re-trimmed by Royal Steering Wheels superb quality thanks for the advice

Edited by Zener on Wednesday 16th December 13:30