Bryan B Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 My 83 steering wheel left alot to be desired when driving short or long distances, it was hard and small diameter (wheel grip area itself not overall size) and beginning to crack in places on the plastic. While I was at my friends tow yard I noticed a Rav4 that was getting scrapped so I happen to see the steering wheel was a nice fat one with soft material I removed it and believe it or not it bolted right up to my steering column, same spline count and all. There is a small hump in my column for the high beam/blinker stem and the amount that the Rav4 wheel sets off of the column actually clears the stem fine. The Rav4 wheel is 1 inch smaller in diameter than the 83 (1/2inch per side) and it sticks out 3/4 of an inch closer to driver- if you can live with that it is a great upgrade. I have seen some ugly aftermarket steering wheels and they really make a car look like crap, this looks totally factory and you can remove the air bag out of it and still utilize the horn function. the gap between the steering wheel itself can either have a small 4.5 inch cover made or I am using the cruise control ring mounted to my column for when I do the 2.7 swap to be able to use my cruise control. I will post up a pic of the ring I made to use the horn still. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan B Posted March 14, 2012 Author Share Posted March 14, 2012 I picked up a sheet of polystyrene (plastic) and used a 3 inch hole saw to make a 3" disk to mount the brass ring for the horn from the original steering wheel and then mount it to the new wheels metal neck (I used plastic because otherwise it would ground out and the horn would always sound) drilled 3 holes to mount the ring with rivets then 2 holes through the plastic into the wheel itself to mount it. that was attached with rivets as well. 2 more small 1/16 inch deep holes for the 'blinker off' collar to spin with the wheel and done, as I said before there is a gap- this can be solved a couple of ways 1. use a thin wall aluminum "collar" about an inch wide with a mount to hide the gap or live with it. 2. most of you wont be swapping to a 2.7 or newer engine with cruise control or you can just add the ring to the column plastic. I am looking at mounting in later model (84-88 and 89-95) to see what may be needed but from what I can tell they are more compatible than an early 79-83 (depth and CC switches) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MAXXFabrication Posted April 4, 2012 Share Posted April 4, 2012 will post pics tom. but this is a great upgrade, it feels so much nicer to have a grip on the wheel and not trying to squeeze a tiny wheel like before, turning, driving, holding the wheel with my knee as I multitask (you know you have done it at least once!!) lol. it is so much easier now (my 83 21 ftr doesnt have power steering FYI) I will snap pics of the back of the wheel mods and what it looks like on the truck. I added my SR5 gauges out of a yellow truck (for now, I crushed a set of perfect factory gauges on accident) the gauges are yellow to match the other truck but I wanted to get the tach and other doodads all wired in (oil pressure, voltimeter, etc) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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