Early 17" steering wheel

[28 Chrysler]

Can anyone ID  this one ?

17" wooden steering wheel takes a 3/4 shaft and has a 2 1/2" dish.

The screws with nuts may have been an old repair.

[41 Su8]

Looks like Model T with a stamped steel spyder.            John

[Layden B]

Probably Model T Ford accessory

[wayne sheldon]

The spider is cast iron. I happen to have an identical one. Mine had no wooden rim when I got it some years back. A few years ago, I acquired the remnants from three wooden rims, and was able to fit enough pieces together to make one good wooden rim. Mine is a bit more plain, but it looks good hanging on my garage wall waiting for an appropriate model T on which to use it.

 

I don't know for certain if they were after-market accessory wheels for the model T or not. However, I suspect they were.

[oldford]

With the double key in the hub, might also be Dodge Bros.

 

Frank

[wayne sheldon]

I have one of these, so I tend to notice them, if I see one. But I haven't seen very many of them. Mine is a bit crude, not like most after-market wheels for model Ts or other cars. I have seen hundreds of after-market steering wheels for model Ts, and a bunch for non-Fords as well. Far and away MOST of them were mostly aluminum spiders. Of the few cast iron spider after-market steering wheels I have seen, I have owned a couple of them (including the one like this one). The other was an early fatman wheel, cast iron, and rather early compared to the dozens of styles aluminum spider fatman wheels offered during the late 1910s and 1920s.

The forward dish of the wheel suggests that it would be for a model T, however it isn't necessarily so. The location of the planetary gears, makes it somewhat advantageous to dish the wheel rim down more in line with the planetary gears. That said, it isn't really a big deal. Lots of people flipped the standard T wheel over for  variety of reasons, and they worked fine that way. Some after-market steering wheels dished down like the T wheel did, but some did not. I have put a lot of miles on a few T speedsters with after-market steering wheels dished the wrong way, and never had a problem from one.

Still, MOST after-market steering wheels of the era that were dished down that way, WERE intended for the model T.

 

As for the double keyway? Not known to most people, most brass era model Ts left the factory with a double keyway on the steering shaft post for the steering wheel. All factory wheels before 1915 had double keyways. That was one of the many cost cutting changes Ford made late in the brass era. A lot, maybe even most, brass era model Ts that had double keyways in the shaft/post over the past hundred years have had the top post replaced by a later single keyway post. I am not sure I even have a double keyway post anymore. I know the brass T I had thirty years ago had one in it, but it went with that T when I sold it. 

So it also would make sense for an after-market steering wheel for a model T during the 1910s to have a double keyway.

 

I have not worked on four cylinder Dodge Brothers cars enough to know what they all used for steering wheels. Although, every Dodge from that era I have looked at had an aluminum spider wheel.

 

I have never seen one of these wheels pictured in an advertisement as an after-market wheel. Doesn't mean it isn't.

All things considered? I think it is likely to have been an after-market wheel intended for a model T, and probably from the mid 1910s.

 

The OP wheel looks nice! I wouldn't mind having it myself. However, I already have nearly a half dozen after-market steering wheels for model Ts, and no model Ts I want to use one on. The two brass era Ts I have and am working on (whenever I can). I want to use the original Ford factory wheels. And I have those also.