Removing 64 steering wheel

[Guest lvrpool32]

Need to pull the steering wheel on my 64 Riviera.

Anyone doen this ? I have a regular steering wheel puller, but dont see a way of mounting the legs to pull it.

any ideas?

Nick

[RivNut]

Nick,

I'm assuming you have the horn bar off. From your description it sounds like you may have a gear puller rather than a steering wheel puller. A steering wheel puller has a threaded bolt in the middle like a gear puller, put there are two arms on it that have slots in them, like a really skinny, long H lying on its side. You put two bolts (mine came with 4 pairs of bolts with different threads) with washers through the slots and screw them into the two holes in the bar of the wheel. As you tighten the center bolt, the slack will be taken up when the arms put pressure on the heads of the bolts/washers, and the wheel will break loose from its tapered fit. If you do have a wheel puller, ignore everyting above.

Second choice may the old "hit it with a big hammer" trick. I've done this a couple of times in a salvage yard when I don't have the wheel puller with me. Back off the nut that holds the wheel on the coulumn until it clears the end of the column but still leaves a number of threads connected. Sit in the seat, put some pressure on the back of the wheel with your upper legs at the bottom (4:00 o'clock, and 8:00 o'clock, and pull with one hand at the top (12:00 o'clock.) Those three points should be applying pressure in the direction you want the wheel to move. With your other hand use your big hammer and hit the nut pretty hard. Lots of times this will break the tapered fit and the wheel should free itself. Finish removing the nut and the wheel will come off. The reason for leaving the nut on the column is to prevent the hammer blow from messing up the threads on the column. Just make sure you hit the nut solid with the center of the hammer head; you don't want a cornerd of the hammer going inside the nut and smacking those threads or hitting the nut at an angle and messing it up. Good luck. If you don't figure out how to use the wheel puller and don't feel comfortable with this "junk yard" method, perhaps someone else will have a better solution.

Merry Christmas

Ed

[Guest lvrpool32]

Thanx again Ed.

I'm looking at my steering wheel and I dont have any holes to thread the puller into. There is 4 "safety" screws where the horn contact is, but no threaded holes (there are two bosses, but they aren't tapped)

Nick

[Guest lvrpool32]

OK got it, needed to remove the second piece (inner) of the horn bar and then the little metal plate. Then you can see the two 5/16 holes to use to pull the wheel.

thanx again.

Nick

[RivNut]

Good job, Nick.

Thanks for letting us know how it all worked out. It seems like so many times when we give advice, we never know whether or not the petitioner was successful because once the suggestion is tried, that's the end of the communication. We're left wondering if our advice was helpful or not.

Thank you for the "thanx", glad we could help

Ed