Rebuilding Steering Wheel

[Hydroglen]

Peter,
Yes of course. I am hesitant to send it out of the country as I would miss
it terribly of lost so I will be looking closer to home. To some extent a
new wheel has it's attractions as it is an instant cure and I keep the old
wheel. Just the cost looks high.

Alan /Pegasus Hunter... I have redone repaired wheels in the past and happy
enough with the results. They were on Mercedes and BMW were the whole wheel
is coated / plastic and there were cracks and bits missing. On the 400 I
haven't figured out how to get the 3 spokes plated without destroyng the
covering. I would then have to start with a bare skinny metal rim. My
skills are not that good and I would be staring at my mistakes as I motor
along! Horror!

Dorien

[Ashley James]

Myrtle got all my bits
Chroned in cluding the spring and clamp and it's a very good job.
Ash

[Ashley James]

I'm sorry wish I hadn't said
it now especially as they seem really friendly when I spoke to them.
They were twice the price of Myrtle and I can't remember who put me
off.
Ash

[Geoff Dowdle]

Ash,
I probably warned you about at least two BOCA members who had problems with
Pearlcraft in Australia.
Patching a cracked wheel rim can only be a temporary fix .
To do the job properly all the original plastic material needs removing and
the rim replaced with stainless steel or bead blasted &plated .
The cracking of the plastic is sometimes caused by the original steel rim
rusting & expanding .

For a 400 type rim I suggest one buys a new wheel , if available ,which can
be attached to a original hub ,the three spokes are usually pitted under the
chrome.
The new wheel should outlast all the individual members of this Forum.

About 20 years ago a member of the BOCA here in Sydney rebuilt his own 401
steering wheel . Completely removed all the plastic rim , made a rough mould
out of three pieces of plywood or
cheap compressed board , suspended the rim in the centre of the mould then
poured the mould full or Araldite two pack glue .
Once hard smashed the mould and hand filed the rim , finishing with various
grades of sand paper , then painted with a good quality two pack paint.
The 401 went to UK some years later so I cannot comment on how well it has
lasted , but it was a very inexpensive option just taking some time, it
certainly looked perfect.

Geoff

[Ashley James]

Myrtle peel the cracked plastic off the spokes but leave the rim and
mask it, then they have the spokes polished and chromed. Finally they
mould resin back over the spokes and up to the rim and then Polyester
lacquer and polish it. The problem is that the original material was
celluloid, which is more flexible and less crack prone. However,
although there was/is a Brit company that re-celluloids I couldn't
find them and wouldn't have used them because they'd done the wheel on
one of my MKVIs and I'd seen others that were peeling and had faded to
grey and gone splotchy.

Alpine Eagle and many of the serious restorers simply fill the cracks,
two pack paint and polish wheels with great success, or if they are
bad enough they send them off to a company in Liverpool who re-cast
the rim in aluminium and paint it. Therefore any later Bristol wheels
are probably best done with two-pack after filling, but I don't think
Myrtle make the original Bluemels type, instead I think they offer, as
many do, the type of wheel used on racing Jaguars and Aston Martins of
the time.

There are Bluemels restorers but not for our type of wheel, only MG
ones.

I hope this helps.

Ashley

[Kevin H]

Originally Posted by Geoff Dowdle

Ash,
I probably warned you about at least two BOCA members who had problems with Pearlcraft in Australia.

Geoff, can you recall the nature of the problems they had?

Kevin

[seanmcs]

The only Bristol 6 cyl I've seen with an original timber rim wheel
is the Zagato. That Roller one looks quite nice, but possibly a bit
fat.

Sean

[Claude]

Originally Posted by seanmcs

The only Bristol 6 cyl I've seen with an original timber rim wheel
is the Zagato. That Roller one looks quite nice, but possibly a bit
fat.
Sean

I have to say the tactile effect of the fatness is first rate, far more comfortable than when I had a 409 with its Blumel.

Don't know about 6 cyl Bristols, but my 410 LHD (now sold and subsequently restored by Bristol Cars), the Elliot Gant (of Gant Shirts) car had a wooden Motolita wheel on it when I purchased it.

Funny story that one... I had presumed the Motolita was an aftermarket add-on, and on a long weekend shopping trip to the UK for parts (it was cheaper - and more fun - to fly JFK to LHR than pay freight), Spencer Lane-Jones kindly sold me a proper Blumel for £50. When I then arrived at Bristol Cars to collect a 411 stainless exhaust system (these were the days when one could still check unusual luggage on Virgin Air), Brian Marelli advised me that in fact the Gant 410 had come originally with that Motolita wooden wheel, and indeed Mr. Gant had been a most particular customer*. He did not like the chrome side strips so they changed them to what became the more understated 411 strips. He did not like the colour of the paint job, and they repainted the car several times. And he felt the huge Blumel steering wheel made no sense, since its diameter was necessary for a non-power steering car, and Bristol had gone to power steering half way through the 409 model... and it seems that this particularity also influenced Bristol to go to a new wheel for the 411.

Mr. Marelli, seeing that I now possessed a surplus Blumel told me the story of one of his customers whose wheel had been stolen, and enquired if I would like to sell it to them. I thought it fair to offer it to him for the price I paid, to be deducted off the bill I was at that moment settling.

Later when I mentioned this to Spencer Lane-Jones, I believe I heard a gasket blow, as it turned out that Spencer had done me a great kindness and sold me the wheel at a substantially lower than market price, a bequest that now had gone to the benefit of Bristol Cars. I probably should not be telling this story, but do so to record for posterity the story of Bristol steering wheels and the naivete of Americans in the old country.

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* in the interest of preserving Bristol Cars policy on not disclosing customer names, as N.A. Registrar I had tracked many of the extant cars in the US and Canada, and one day got a call from Elliot Gant, astounded but delighted that I had tracked him down. He was a lovely gentleman and told me any number of stories (having just sold the company, he could have afforded a Rolls, but felt he could never pull it off in Yankee New Haven, Connecticut, hence the Bristol). After I had told Mr. Marelli enough of them to establish the first customer had disclosed his identity to me (Americans like Mr Gant could not care less about this British obsession with privacy acts), I was able to get the factory's side of it. Even Mr. Crook filled in many of the gaps.