Is it yours?

Yes

Have you retained the airbag?

No

LINK
A few photos to explain.

Good job you have done on that wheel airbag it suits the interior well .
what did you use for the mould talk us through it.

Sorry not to my taste. What are the seats you have in there, are they from an Alfa?

I do like the original wheel!

The wheel is one of the things that you touch when driving and get feedback of quality etc.
Unfortunately with contact they wear and new ones are not available.

The one which was in my car at purchase was badly worn, as was the interior.
Finding a decent second hand one is possible but will still not be perfect. I did find one which was in decent condition which I have been using.
The donor wheel in the pictures was one I bought very cheaply and had been covered in alcantara.
It lasted about twelve months before it looked a bit too shabby.

While browsing I came across for sale a new Fiat 500 sport wheel.
I liked the design of it. It was Fiat so may fit. Price wasn’t too bad (without air bag) for a new wheel.
Thought it will be possible to resolve the space where the air bag sat.

Searching more, I found a few second hand ones.
I either got no reply or ‘dunno, fits a 500’ when I was enquiring with regards to the bore and spline size.

In the end I found this one which was half the price of the new one and looked decent enough in the photo’s but was still a gamble on condition.
I was very happy when it arrived as it was in perfect condition. No sign of use anywhere.

Getting it to fit.
The bore and spline are the same as the Coupe’s. The 500’s does have three locating splines which I would guess are used to index the wheel central.
This could have been easily resolved but, the stub is just too short.
Hence, chopping the plate and shaft from the donor wheel and attaching it to the new one.

The new one is cast aluminium and the original is steel and welded.
The weight difference is very noticeable between the two.
The Coupe’s being of steel and polyurethane dense foam rubber is a real heavy weight to the 500’s light metal and plastic shroud.

Not being able to weld the two different metals I drilled and tapped ten m6 holes in the 500 wheel plate to attach the Coupe’s steel plate.
For good measure, I did put locknuts on the bolts and used a polyurethane adhesive between the two surfaces.

Transferred through the clockspring fixing holes etc.

I also had a 25mm gap to fill between the back of the wheel and the column cowling. Which was resolved by producing the oval ring out of abs in the pics.

The diameter of both wheels are the same and it sits in the same position back and forth.

Filling the gap.
I was not sure about keeping the buttons either side.
Whether to remove them and make it part of the new fascia or keep them as they were already there and looked ok.
The other thing to resolve would be the horn.
So I plastidipped the faces and adapted them to control the horn.
Otherwise I would have ended up with some not very pretty aftermarket knob/button affair.

To my mind, it justified keeping the multifunction buttons as they did have a use.
Albeit it could be argued that eight horn buttons is overkill.

I sculpted the fascia several different times until I arrived with what you see.
I used Newplast which is kind of a plastercine for grown-ups.

There are better versions of this type of material I would normally use but had this to hand and it does the job.

Silicone mould then taken with a fibreglass jacket.
I was going to cast this in fibreglass but used polyurethane resin.

This was then worked on to smooth and refine any of the imperfections from the sculpt.

I had decided that I would just use plastidip as the finish. Spraying it satin black first. I was not totally convinced and that it would look unfinished.
Ended up trimming it in a nappa leather. Which I think looks a lot better.
Although I may re-trim it as I am not 100% happy.

I was going to dye the red stitching black, on the steering wheel as I have a black on black interior.
Instead, I have replaced the two gators and handbrake handle cover with red stitched ones.
The gear knob with a new red stitched Punto Evo Racing one.

Which brings me back to the beginning.

New feel wheel and gear knob makes it a nicer place to be.


@Mark 147GTA seats

What a huge job, hats off to you.

I agree a key interaction point so has to be good: I just had mine re-covered for £100 and it was perfect (and better IMHO with blue inserts)

I was pondering the refurb route. Royalsteeringwheels always seem to pop up with good revues when browsing.
£100 is a very good price. Who did you use?

Very good! How does the "feel" change if the steering wheel is lighter? I think the transformation you did is superb althou I'm not sure about the steering wheel design itself. It might be great to hold it...but it looks even biger than the original. Hence the questions:
-is steering much easier?
-is the grip better
-does it in aby way disturb thw view of the tachos?
-why didnt you keep the airbag? Too much work or it just doesnt fit?

That's a nicely tricked out interior. Now of course you need to tell us about the ashtray....

@Mrzly_slo
The 500 wheel is the same diameter as the Coupe's and is no different visually with dials etc.
It does feel lighter, not sure that's a placebo effect.
It does feel nice in the hand. It's profile is different around the wheel. It's oval at the top and the side grips are much larger as you can see. So instead of just your thumb you have your hand there.
Air bag. It would be twice as much if not more to get one with an airbag. You could fit it with one but not possible to connect it with the original connections/setup. I'm sure if you wanted to you could get round this but I have no idea about the communication of two different setups and how that would work. Also, I don't like how it actually looks

I know it will not be to everyone's taste. And that's fine. I do like the original wheel as I have said. It's quite slim for an airbag wheel. The 500 wheel is round in design unlike the Coupe's and my aim was to try and take the visual weight from it and to make it sympathetic to what was there already.
I thought it was more in keeping with what I had in mind than say a Momo or other wheel.

@Patch234
I took a mould of the ashtray and cast it in the same material. Sanded off the front raised part. Milled the back out to house the widget and 12v power outlet and two micro usb supplies.
So it's just a fascia. I put a strip of metal in the dash housing and rare earth magnets on the fascia to attach it in place, so it can be pulled out when needed.

i did have the body colour painted central console/ashtray thing going on. But have redone it all in plastidip which I prefer. I wanted everything black. But now have brought in this red stitching thing in. You can get sun visor covers, arm rest covers and door handle pull covers with the red stitching so who knows where I might end up.


There are two switches where the coin holder/sunroof switch is located. One operates the high speed radiator fan, the other operates the oil cooler fan.

Great, can you make me one? .... please!

I don't think I have the mould any more. But that was a blank of the original without any work done to it.
The best way would be to take a mould of the one in the car. Which I can do sometime in the future. As I have just refurbed and re-installed it I would be a little reluctant to pull it back out at the moment.
I had to cut out some of the interior of the housing in the dash to allow for room for the power unit. Plus, this fascia was made to fit a specific power unit layout. It had the socket and mini sockets in one block, which also had to be cut about and fixing added. It is a tight squeeze to get it in the dash.
Could keep the widget part and blank the power part for the mould which then could be modified to accommodate requirements.

Very smart

Cheers CC
Can you relocate to London?

Upton Upon Severn isn't that far

Great job Darren, agree with you about the bulbous airbag model.

Was a few years ago now, used Joe at TrimDelux

@Mrzly_slo
Same view as normal.

Widget is readable from drivers seat. Unless you got polarised sunglasses on, as standard.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/FIAT-COUPE-steering-wheel-175-A1-000-build-1995-92416-miles-/351574686238?fits=Car+Make%3AFiat%7CModel%3ACoupe&hash=item51db7bfa1e:g:JV8AAOSwYHxWQNK7

Ok. 16v used wheel ?

not sure, just thought it may be of interest

link

Wow £204! Ive bought a whole coupe cheaper than that..

Wheely expensive...Joking apart, that is far,far, did I mention far more than I would pay for a secondhand steering wheel.

I slapped a momo millennium evo in mine about a decade ago when the airbag clock spring gave up. Looks contemporary I think. Horn is wired in OK but has no airbag.

Feels very good to drive, I prefer it to the original for feel in the steering
momo steering wheel 16vt

Nice having the horn in the middle, so you can give it a good thump!
Feel changes the perception.