Norris Family Blog

New Steering Wheel and Tonneau Cover

The rain was coming down this morning, so after breakfast, I went to the garage and began taking the old steering wheel off of the 1956 Chevy. I had ordered a new steering wheel from Billet Specialties and it arrived Thursday. I included a leather half wrap, horn button, and adapter in my order. Getting the old wheel off ended up being easier than I had anticipated. After removing the horn button I just removed the nut and washer, then sort of slapped the back of the steering wheel with the heel of my hand and it popped off. Now the fun part, putting the new one on the right way, getting it centered so it looked straight when the car was going down the road and then assembly of the horn button. After sliding the adapter on three times I figured out I was going to have to use a Dremel like tool to alter one of the pieces for the canceling of the turn signals. It took about 5 minutes to grind the piece to where the horn contact would work, then I assembled the adapter with 3 allen bolts in the wheel for alignment purposes. I tightened the nut and washer and the rest was simply screwing in allen screws to attach the wheel and the leather half wrap to the wheel. The entire process took over an hour, but the results were great IMO.
 
I had also ordered a tonneau cover for the Triumph TR-3. I had taken it out of the box and noticed it needed the attachment clips put on before we could use it. After eating lunch in town, Linda and I began working on the cover and I do mean working. We had to test fit the cover, then determine where to punch holes in the cover. We started along the windshield area and punched out about 12 holes, then took the cover off and began attaching the clips that hold it on the car. This was a major pain. We had to center the clips, then hammer them lightly against the cover, then use a small hobby knife to make the holes for the clips, then place the clip on the cover, then place the retaining clip on the other side of the cover, then hold both pieces together while hammering down the small flaps of metal that holds the pieces together. Then we attached the cover back to the car, stretched it to fit as best we could, mark more holes and continued like that until we had the entire cover attached. Our fingers and hands were sore from all the pulling and tucking to get the best fit we could. Linda test drove the car with the cover on and half unzipped. It held on and she made it back. Our work was a success.