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Broken spring clip on woodgrain wheel center cap


toomuchvinyl

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Hoping someone can help me with this, I recently removed the cap from the woodgrain steering wheel on my '64. When I went to place it back on, I noticed that the "ear" on one of the 3 retaining clips had broken off. I'm guessing that those clips are spring steel so trying to fabricate one would be difficult at best. Has anyone had this happen and if so, what did you do to fix it?

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Keith,


I have exactly the same problem... Couldn't solve it by now. Only with with 2 of these "ears", my wheel cap seams to stay at its place not too bad (why I didn't had to solve this issue that quick). Of course 3 would be better...

 

If anyone has a good idea how to solve this problem, I would be very happy too! ?

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53 minutes ago, Schmiddy said:

Keith,


I have exactly the same problem... Couldn't solve it by now. Only with with 2 of these "ears", my wheel cap seams to stay at its place not too bad (why I didn't had to solve this issue that quick). Of course 3 would be better...

 

If anyone has a good idea how to solve this problem, I would be very happy too! ?

I would be happy to share any info I can find. Right now, I'm curious about the possibility of the retainers being similar on a '65 or '66 repro center cap from a Chevy Impala with woodgrain wheel. I just can't find a photo of the back side of one to see. If nothing else comes up, I'll try calling one of the parts companies that sells them and ask for a photo or at least a description. The caps are around $60 US but if the clips are similar I'm sure I could find others who may want the ones I don't need to help share the cost.

 

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I sure will Ed, I know you were possibly needing all 3 for a cap you had. One question for you, when you removed the clips from your cap, were they just attached with rivets, or as I saw someone guessing were the attachments indexing posts that were peened over?

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Yep, all three.  If I once had them  they're now MIA.  

 

HERE are a couple of pictures of the back of the hub. One without the emblem in place and one with.  To my way of looking at this, there were pins cast into the hub and peened once the emblem and clips were in place.  Not too much material for peening from what I see.  Maybe someone else will see something different. But as Tom T. says, it looks like it might be easy to drill and tap the pins.  They were cast with a hollow center. Now to find the screw and tap that small.

 

IMG_20180723_182907422.thumb.jpg.05f828d0ce136e9b60d5f7cda4bd07d0.jpgIMG_20180723_182902633.thumb.jpg.1a24fe25b237913d6b42d5bcf0d03896.jpgIMG_20180723_183045257.thumb.jpg.ae37e173fb156b31fc98aa144ef89bef.jpg

Edited by RivNut
Effing predictive text. (see edit history)
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                    Today I took   a center cap off of my ralley wheels and put it in the middle of my wood wheel and the diameter is perfect and it

is much better looking than the original center caps these wheels came with. It looks to me like that if a person removed the machine screws from the back of the repro  wheel center cap, got longer screws with the same thread and made some shims to shim the center gripper on the cap more towards

the bottom of the cap, that you could do away with the horn bar altogether and honk the horn with a modified ralley wheel center cap, and that the whole wheel would be much more attractive. After shimming, the grippers would fit down inside the remains of a broken horn bar(the center part of the bar, with the bars broken off.)

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1 hour ago, Seafoam65 said:

                    Today I took   a center cap off of my ralley wheels and put it in the middle of my wood wheel and the diameter is perfect and it

is much better looking than the original center caps these wheels came with. It looks to me like that if a person removed the machine screws from the back of the repro  wheel center cap, got longer screws with the same thread and made some shims to shim the center gripper on the cap more towards

the bottom of the cap, that you could do away with the horn bar altogether and honk the horn with a modified ralley wheel center cap, and that the whole wheel would be much more attractive. After shimming, the grippers would fit down inside the remains of a broken horn bar(the center part of the bar, with the bars broken off.)

Winston.

 

If you're familiar with the horn cap from the Z28 Camaro, the four bar one, I think you could take the cup from that kit, connect it to the Riviera's wheel's horn assembly and take the back off of the Camaro cap and attach it to your center cap to come up with what you're envisioning. The cup would act as your spacer and the back of the Camaro horn cap snaps into that cup.  Everything is available from the Camaro repro guys,  one kit has a plastic horn cap back that could easily be drilled for hole to line up with the holes in your center cap.  I think there were a lot of GM cars that used this same assembly if the horn used a button in the center of the steering wheel.  I think my old Jeep Cherokee even had the same setup.

 

Ed

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25 minutes ago, RivNut said:

Winston.

 

If you're familiar with the horn cap from the Z28 Camaro, the four bar one, I think you could take the cup from that kit, connect it to the Riviera's wheel's horn assembly and take the back off of the Camaro cap and attach it to your center cap to come up with what you're envisioning. The cup would act as your spacer and the back of the Camaro horn cap snaps into that cup.  Everything is available from the Camaro repro guys,  one kit has a plastic horn cap back that could easily be drilled for hole to line up with the holes in your center cap.  I think there were a lot of GM cars that used this same assembly if the horn used a button in the center of the steering wheel.  I think my old Jeep Cherokee even had the same setup.

 

Ed

Here's a picture of the "kit" you can get for those four spoke Z28 rally steering wheels.  

OER K137 - OER Standard Wheel Horn Cap Mounting Sets

 

Horn cap retainer for a 71 - 81 Camaro

 

715014-a1-500x500constrain.jpg

 

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                          I think I'm going to pursue this on my steering wheel. I REALLY like the way this looks! If I can pioneer a way to do this,

everybody will be able to have brand new center caps with no need to buy expensive repro horn bars or spend thousands buying and restoring pitted used center caps, and it just plain looks better. The cap is prettier, and not having the horn bar makes the wheel much more attractive. There is a large supply of wood wheels out there that can't be used because of the horn bar and unobtanium center cap problem.

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16 minutes ago, Seafoam65 said:

                          I think I'm going to pursue this on my steering wheel. I REALLY like the way this looks! If I can pioneer a way to do this,

everybody will be able to have brand new center caps with no need to buy expensive repro horn bars or spend thousands buying and restoring pitted used center caps, and it just plain looks better. The cap is prettier, and not having the horn bar makes the wheel much more attractive. There is a large supply of wood wheels out there that can't be used because of the horn bar and unobtanium center cap problem.

And the center caps are being reproduced.?

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12 hours ago, Seafoam65 said:

soDSCN0310.thumb.JPG.55f404c8495fe061a846bdd2e64e3a93.JPGme p ics of what this would look like......much prettier than the factory setup in my opinion

DSCN0311.JPG


Hi Winston,
As a purist, I like original parts far better than bespoke solutions ... But this time I have to admit that the idea of putting a hubcap into the horncap is the best alternative solution I've seen so far - and looks absolutely gorgeous!
Congrats Winston, pioneering work at its finest! ??

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                    The diameter of the center section of the original horn bar measures 2 1/8 inches, so with the ears of the horn bar broken off or removed,

with some shimming, a repro wheel center cap for the 2 1/8 inch hole should fit right on to the center section of the old horn bar and honk the horn.

I can't see why it can't work, so I'm going to try to do this and I'll report how it turns out. Another thing about this conversion is that you could convert it back to stock in about five minutes if you wanted to, if you possess a stock horn bar and center cap.

Edited by Seafoam65 (see edit history)
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I've been watching the thread and am very impressed with Winston's work on using a wheel center for a horn cap!

 

I'd mentioned in an earlier post that I had a possibility other than seeing if the Chevy cap may have similar clips. What I was referring to is that I have family members who own a metal fabricating shop. They have computer controlled Laser and Waterjet cutting equipment and manufacture all sorts of production and one-off items. I sent a photo of my horn cap showing both the broken and intact clips to my uncle and he believes that they could make a new clip using spring steel banding material of the same gauge. Now the dilemma I'm having. He asked me to send in a clip, preferably the broken one IF I had the broken off piece as well as what remained. Otherwise, he would need an unbroken one to scan and model. I checked the floor of the car and the recess behind the horn bar and I cannot find the broken off bit. Because of the issue with the clips being attached to castings rather than being simply riveted on, I'm hesitant to remove an intact clip as then I'd have only one good clip left and the center cap would be useless if I messed up trying to drill and tap the castings to reattach the replacements. I don't have a drill press and would be very nervous about trying to use a hand drill make the holes.

 

On a positive note, it does look like very small taps are available https://www.victornet.com/detail/TAMP-1.6-.35.html as well as screws. Just need to determine the length that would be needed.

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                      In looking at my horn cap, I would say that you should be able to buy an extremely short, extremely tiny screw that will screw into

and tighten up in the existing holes in the pins. You can buy screws that short and that small in diameter from a specialty hardware store. The  pins are

too tiny and too short to drill or tap.

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I agree Winston. Looking at the photos of Ed's cap and looking down into the holes in my own, it looks like one or two have a "shoulder" partway down and others are smooth walled to the bottom. The sources for screws that I've looked at so far offer a wide range of small sizes like that but I haven't seen any that are self tapping yet. I'm not sure if that would matter if you could get a size that would bite the sides slightly to get a small purchase and before you put them in for the final time, drip some thread lock stuff or maybe even epoxy into the holes. It's gonna take some applied science to get through this one :)

 

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              They don't need to be self tapping. You want screws that come to a point on their ends and of course short enough that they don't bottom

out in the hole, or you risk them going through to the other side. DO NOT use thread lock or epoxy because then you would never be able to remove

the clip again. I have use this method numerous times on pins like this made of plastic......it should work well with pot metal as it is very soft.

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You DON'T want to use self tapping screws as the pot metal is pretty soft & CAN'T take ANY KIND OF STRESS & more than likely will crack or completely break off the stud. Better to drill & tap & don't forget to use a small flat washer. I have a couple caps but the clips are still there & the caps are kinda pitted so to me aren't worth selling unless someone doesn't have one & needs one to finish what they have.

 

Tom T.

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1 hour ago, telriv said:

You DON'T want to use self tapping screws as the pot metal is pretty soft & CAN'T take ANY KIND OF STRESS & more than likely will crack or completely break off the stud. Better to drill & tap & don't forget to use a small flat washer. I have a couple caps but the clips are still there & the caps are kinda pitted so to me aren't worth selling unless someone doesn't have one & needs one to finish what they have.

 

Tom T.

              Tom do any of your caps have a nice lucite insert with no deep scratches? If so, I'll buy it for the lucite and let Schmiddy and Keith

have the retaining clips they need after I take it apart.

Edited by Seafoam65 (see edit history)
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                     I am really getting interested in trying to pioneer new ways to restore the factory horn caps as they

are in such short supply. Many are unuseable due to horrible scratched lucite on the Riviera emblem. I am fairly sure and I am working to

verify that later model Riviera wheel cover center caps like the 80's models that have the identical black lucite with the identical Riviera emblem

are in fact designed to go into a 2 inch hole like the one in the Riviera wood wheel horn cap. If this is the case and I believe that it probably is, These lucite emblems could be used for the horn cap to replace a damaged one.......or better yet, it means that a person could cut off the old lucite emblem

by cutting around the spring clips and  then one could have the pot metal cap rechromed without disturbing the clips or their bradded over pins holding them on, then simply glue in the wheel center cap lucite after getting the part back from the chromer. I believe this is definitely going to be the way to go in restoring these caps. I'll keep everyone posted on this. The 86-88 Riviera wheel center cap has an absolutely identical lucite emblem

to the wood wheel horn cap, so if it is designed for a 2 inch hole, that is the solution to the lucite problem.

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40 minutes ago, RivNut said:

Winston,

Have you contacted Mitch Romanoski and asked him about the reproduction caps and emblems he has reproduced?

 

http://buickcenters.com/riviera.html

 

Ed

Ed, the 66-70 medallion would work if it is for a 2 inch hole.....it looks like it probably is 2 inch, can anyone on the forum measure the

 hole in the middle of their 66-70 wheel center cap and tell me if it is 2 inches across? Ditto on the 86-88 center caps for the wire wheel covers.

 

Edited by Seafoam65 (see edit history)
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On 7/24/2018 at 1:42 PM, Seafoam65 said:

soDSCN0310.thumb.JPG.55f404c8495fe061a846bdd2e64e3a93.JPGme p ics of what this would look like......much prettier than the factory setup in my opinion

DSCN0311.JPG

  In spite of the fact the "fit" looks nice, in my opinion, this is MUCH less attractive as compared to the factory setup with horn bar. The addition of the extra bling of the hornbar, where as other GM divisions just left an open space, and the concave profile of the original emblem insert, are extra features that make a our Buick distinct.

If one didnt have an original center cap/ horn bar, however, this would be a good, workable solution...again, just my opinion,

Tom

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