I have cleaned my steering wheel before, but after it sits for awhile it seems the heat or something makes it sticky again. Was thinking about cleaning again, after its dry spray it with a clear coat. Not sure what to do, any ideas?o No:
Thanks Bert I'll have to try that, as for you chris burn :af: and I'll ray: for you. That was a pretty good one.
last week i took my filthy/sticky wheel (76 lesabre) and cleaned it and coated it ... here is what i did and it worked better than anything i have ever tried ... i took a plastic sheetrock mudding tray and filled it with warm water and mixed in some tide with bleach powdered detergent. sat the tray on my legs (with a towel in the seat in case of spillage) and tilted the wheel into the soapy water. without applying much pressure, i took a (new) typical home plastic scrub brush and moved it lightly back and forth making sure to scrub all the wheel submerged in the soapy water that i could before starting the car and advancing more wheel into the tray. using damp rags from the soapy water and the brush cleaned the horn bar well. once the wheel was clean (and it took 3 trays of soapy water to do my because my blue wheel looked BROWN!!). i wiped it down with a wet soaking wet towel several times. after it dried, i coated the whole wheel and horn bar with 303 Aerospace Protectant three times. that stuff is excellent. the wheel looks great and feels like a new one.
I had this one cleaned up good about a year ago, trying to move along on my restoration, put it in the upstair section of my garage. I think the heat got to it last summer. Just wondering if this is going to be a reaccuring thing? Thats why I was thinking of trying the clear coat on it, but then again I hate to wreck a wheel.
The heat/storage is probably what is causing it, especially if it was wrapped in plastic or something similar. Just clean it up before you install it. Bert
My brothers 71 sport wheel is sticky as can be and it's in open air. No wrapping. It must be the heat, as it is in an elevated section ( not quite an attic) of the garage.:TU:
I have one in my basement, it is really sticky now 2 years later. I doubt the heat is the problem, just a thought.
i have always heard that the rubber releases that sticky stuff as a uv protectant and under normal use your hands keep it from building up on the surface. i dont know how true it is, but it does seem that a normally used wheel doesnt seem to be too bad about the sticky stuff.
The wheel in my 71 GMC does the same thing. It sits alot under a car port with the windows up. I cleaned it with laquer thinner and it worked great. I'm looking for a blue sport wheel to replace it with though, that will take care of both problems. :TU:
The stickiness is caused by the plasticizers in the plastic or vinyl leaching out from age. There is no known way to stop it, you may get it to feel less sticky for a while but that's about it. I deal with vintage toys and if there was a way to solve it I and others in the business would like to know. You may get away with lightly cleaning it with mild soap and water and using lemon pledge but it always comes back. If bad just throw away the part, that stuff is nasty. If it doesn't get sticky again it was probably something that got on the wheel, not the plasticizer.
Thanks for all of the replies, eventually throught forums like this someone will come up with a long term solution. :idea2:
