Diy Steering Wheel Removal And Aftermarket Install
09-25-2006, 12:00 AM
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Vehicle: Turbocharged 2001 Hyundai Tiburon
Ok, there has been a few places with some vauge descriptions on how to do this so i figured while i was installing mine i would go ahead and snap some pictures for a DIY.
Few tools are needed, and i did the install without a steering wheel puller or torx. Overall i give this a 2 out of 10 if you bought a momo hub and 2.5 out of 10 if you bought a cheap hub
<u>Tools</u>:
Phillips head screwdriver
Breaker Bar
22mm socket
Ratchet (at least 3/8 drive)
6" extender
Medium sized flat head screwdriver
Black Sharpie / white out
Funnel, 3 feet of 1/2-3/4 diameter clear plastic tubing, tall friend, 6-pak of beer of a brand of your liking cool.gif
<u>optional</u>:
A second, longer (4 foot) breaker bar
Torx wrench, dunno what size cuz i didnt use it
Steering wheel puller
A spare set of hands helps
<u>
Needed if installing aftermarket wheel</u>:
Aftermarket wheel and hub (duh...)
Aftermarket horn, hex bolts, and hex wrench (should come with wheel/hub)
Dremel if you bought a cheap "universal" hub
Soldering iron, solder, electrical tape
~3 feet wire
Stripper, not the kind that takes all your singles.. wink1.gif
Ok before you do anything, disconnect the battery.
Now that we've done that, here is the view of the steering wheel most of you are familiar with, can you believe i just vacuumed 2 days ago?
1) On the side of the steering wheel there are plastic tabs, pop them off with your flat head, you will see this
2) those are torx screws, theyre not on super tight so a flat head and some grunt will get them loose if you dont have torx. Loosen them as much as you can, they wont come off all the way. After you loosen both screws take the airbag of like so....
3) Youll notice that theres something holding the airbag on, its the wires that activate it. Take your flat head and pop it off at the airbag like this
now youll see this.
4) Adjust the wheel so its perfectly straight.
5) Now take your Sharpie and make some crosshairs with a little arrow on the top so you can put the wheel on straight later. ( it was hard to get a picture of this so i doctored it to make it clear what i did)
Now we need to get that big honking bolt off, if youve got a friend handy who can hold the steering wheel still for you your in good shape, if not, your not out of luck.
6) If you dont have a friend grab that second breaker bar i recommended and put it through the wheel and brace it with your knee, kinda confusing but the picture clears it up (if you dont have another breaker bar and no friend then either go to the store or get on myspace lol)
7) Then while sitting in the driver's seat brace the bar with your left knee
8) Take your ratchet, socket, extension, and short breaker bar and while bracing the wheel with the large breaker bar, loosen the nut. Itll take some grease to get it off which is why i recomend the small breaker bar.
9) Now once the nut is loose, use your fingers to get the nut and the lock washer off, but be careful not to smear your marker.
Now this is where youd whip out your steering wheel puller and get that wheel off with finesse... Whats that? Your like me and decide to start projects at 12:46 in the morning and dont have a puller? no problem
10) slide your seat foreward and give the wheel a good heave, itll most likely take a few tries. If your wheel hasnt been taken off since you got your car (like mine) youll have to give the wheel some convincing to get off. Hit the top of the wheel (12 o'clock) with the heels of your hands in a punching/pushing motion. Ghead and hit hard. Then give it a tug.
If you cant get it after this just go rent a puller.
After you get the wheel loose make sure you disconnect all the wires before you pull the wheel off.
Now youll see this, this is the clockspring, i didnt see any use for it so i removed it.
Now we are onto installation of the aftermarket wheel.
11) This is simple if you have a momo hub designed for our cars, just place it on the splines and tighten up the nut, if you bought a cheap ebay hub like me, it wont slide right on, youll have to dremel the hub out a bit; but not too much. After dremeling, youll most likely have to give the hub some taps to make it go all the way on. Once its on the splines, tighten the nut all the way.
notice the arrow is pointing right at a hole, that is the hole that the hub denotes as the "top hole"
If your hub/wheel came with a horn button that has two spade connections on it hooking up the horn is quite easy. If your horn button only has one spade connection youll have to use your own noggin to hook up the horn.
12) Now if your horn button is of the former variety, first cut and strip the stock horn wires. if you dont know the horn wires are the wires that go into the black harness as opposed to the yellow harness.
13) Run 2, 1.5' long wires through the hole in the side of the hub.
14) Attach the wires to the horn button, Make sure there is enough slack to wind around the hub 3 times each way, this simulates turning the wheel.
15) Now solder the other sides of the wires to the stock horn wires. The wiring orientation does not matter, you can re-connect the battery and test the horn if you wish.
16) Attach the plastic shrouding
17) Now using the hex bolts and hex wrench attach the steering wheel.
Tighten like so
Tighten until it stops spinning then move on, dont apply torque to the screw, just move on to the next one.
After they stop tightening apply a small amount of torque to each of them, DONT overtighten them, they strip easily.
<span style="color:#666666">
PHANTOM 18) to prevent the airbag light from coming on connect the two wires of the airbag system with a 2 ohm resistor. This is a phantom step because i did not do it yet but i plan to, this will become an actual step when i complete and confirm the resistance is appropriate.</span>
FINISHED!! Heres how it looks when its all said and done!
cool.gif a little custom horn button cool.gif
Few tools are needed, and i did the install without a steering wheel puller or torx. Overall i give this a 2 out of 10 if you bought a momo hub and 2.5 out of 10 if you bought a cheap hub
<u>Tools</u>:
Phillips head screwdriver
Breaker Bar
22mm socket
Ratchet (at least 3/8 drive)
6" extender
Medium sized flat head screwdriver
Black Sharpie / white out
Funnel, 3 feet of 1/2-3/4 diameter clear plastic tubing, tall friend, 6-pak of beer of a brand of your liking cool.gif
<u>optional</u>:
A second, longer (4 foot) breaker bar
Torx wrench, dunno what size cuz i didnt use it
Steering wheel puller
A spare set of hands helps
<u>
Needed if installing aftermarket wheel</u>:
Aftermarket wheel and hub (duh...)
Aftermarket horn, hex bolts, and hex wrench (should come with wheel/hub)
Dremel if you bought a cheap "universal" hub
Soldering iron, solder, electrical tape
~3 feet wire
Stripper, not the kind that takes all your singles.. wink1.gif
Ok before you do anything, disconnect the battery.
Now that we've done that, here is the view of the steering wheel most of you are familiar with, can you believe i just vacuumed 2 days ago?
1) On the side of the steering wheel there are plastic tabs, pop them off with your flat head, you will see this
2) those are torx screws, theyre not on super tight so a flat head and some grunt will get them loose if you dont have torx. Loosen them as much as you can, they wont come off all the way. After you loosen both screws take the airbag of like so....
3) Youll notice that theres something holding the airbag on, its the wires that activate it. Take your flat head and pop it off at the airbag like this
now youll see this.
4) Adjust the wheel so its perfectly straight.
5) Now take your Sharpie and make some crosshairs with a little arrow on the top so you can put the wheel on straight later. ( it was hard to get a picture of this so i doctored it to make it clear what i did)
Now we need to get that big honking bolt off, if youve got a friend handy who can hold the steering wheel still for you your in good shape, if not, your not out of luck.
6) If you dont have a friend grab that second breaker bar i recommended and put it through the wheel and brace it with your knee, kinda confusing but the picture clears it up (if you dont have another breaker bar and no friend then either go to the store or get on myspace lol)
7) Then while sitting in the driver's seat brace the bar with your left knee
8) Take your ratchet, socket, extension, and short breaker bar and while bracing the wheel with the large breaker bar, loosen the nut. Itll take some grease to get it off which is why i recomend the small breaker bar.
9) Now once the nut is loose, use your fingers to get the nut and the lock washer off, but be careful not to smear your marker.
Now this is where youd whip out your steering wheel puller and get that wheel off with finesse... Whats that? Your like me and decide to start projects at 12:46 in the morning and dont have a puller? no problem
10) slide your seat foreward and give the wheel a good heave, itll most likely take a few tries. If your wheel hasnt been taken off since you got your car (like mine) youll have to give the wheel some convincing to get off. Hit the top of the wheel (12 o'clock) with the heels of your hands in a punching/pushing motion. Ghead and hit hard. Then give it a tug.
If you cant get it after this just go rent a puller.
After you get the wheel loose make sure you disconnect all the wires before you pull the wheel off.
Now youll see this, this is the clockspring, i didnt see any use for it so i removed it.
Now we are onto installation of the aftermarket wheel.
11) This is simple if you have a momo hub designed for our cars, just place it on the splines and tighten up the nut, if you bought a cheap ebay hub like me, it wont slide right on, youll have to dremel the hub out a bit; but not too much. After dremeling, youll most likely have to give the hub some taps to make it go all the way on. Once its on the splines, tighten the nut all the way.
notice the arrow is pointing right at a hole, that is the hole that the hub denotes as the "top hole"
If your hub/wheel came with a horn button that has two spade connections on it hooking up the horn is quite easy. If your horn button only has one spade connection youll have to use your own noggin to hook up the horn.
12) Now if your horn button is of the former variety, first cut and strip the stock horn wires. if you dont know the horn wires are the wires that go into the black harness as opposed to the yellow harness.
13) Run 2, 1.5' long wires through the hole in the side of the hub.
14) Attach the wires to the horn button, Make sure there is enough slack to wind around the hub 3 times each way, this simulates turning the wheel.
15) Now solder the other sides of the wires to the stock horn wires. The wiring orientation does not matter, you can re-connect the battery and test the horn if you wish.
16) Attach the plastic shrouding
17) Now using the hex bolts and hex wrench attach the steering wheel.
Tighten like so
Tighten until it stops spinning then move on, dont apply torque to the screw, just move on to the next one.
After they stop tightening apply a small amount of torque to each of them, DONT overtighten them, they strip easily.
<span style="color:#666666">
PHANTOM 18) to prevent the airbag light from coming on connect the two wires of the airbag system with a 2 ohm resistor. This is a phantom step because i did not do it yet but i plan to, this will become an actual step when i complete and confirm the resistance is appropriate.</span>
FINISHED!! Heres how it looks when its all said and done!
cool.gif a little custom horn button cool.gif
09-25-2006, 12:18 AM
#2
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perdy good write up... i wouldnt recommend the breaker bar thing though for taking the wheel off.. more chances of messing up the stock wheel, cuz the metal is soo soft; and would make harder to sell if you wanted to. also, you can usually rent a steering wheel remover from the car parts store (autozone) for the price of the item, and then full refund upon return.
and on the torx wrench/flathead thing.. my torx bolts WERE REALLLY TIGHT. and i broke off the tip of one of the flathead bits i used, so be careful.
the black sharpie is a GOOOD reccomendation.
good write up. like the tiburon horn button.
and on the torx wrench/flathead thing.. my torx bolts WERE REALLLY TIGHT. and i broke off the tip of one of the flathead bits i used, so be careful.
the black sharpie is a GOOOD reccomendation.
good write up. like the tiburon horn button.
09-25-2006, 12:32 AM
#3
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Thanks lol, i didnt feel great about the HKS logo there seeing as they dont make steering wheels lol. I wanted to do it with the dragonfly font but i dont have it on wordperfect and i couldnt find it on the web to download it.
Dunno what you mean about damaging the wheel when taking it off with the breaker bar, i used the bigger breaker bar to hold everything still while i loosened the nut.
Dunno what you mean about damaging the wheel when taking it off with the breaker bar, i used the bigger breaker bar to hold everything still while i loosened the nut.
09-25-2006, 12:48 AM
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Vehicle: 2001/Hyundai/Tiburon
I'll probably try to get my airbag light out soon, I found this on a gti forum.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>From what I understand from those who have removed their air bags (Mike
Bigus, et al) it's not very difficult. The trick is getting the idiot light
out. Many have just removed the dash cluster bulb, but there is a better
way.
Last month's Car and Driver had an article on airbag removal and explained
step by step how to do it. The advantage here is the car's computer and
warning light system still think that the airbag assembly is fully in tact,
plus you don't have to screw with anything in the cluster (one less thing to
break)
Here's a summary of how to get the idiot light out w/o just removing the
bulb from the cluster:
1. Remove the steering wheel and unhook the wires to the airbag.
Energize the ignition and the airbag warning light should appear.
2. Use a multimeter to determine the resistance across the driver's
side airbag circuit with the airbag reconnected and the ignition energized.
Record that value. (If you have any resistors lying around of that
resistance bridge those the two airbag wires (airbag removed now) and
energize the ignition. The light should be out.)
3. If you don't have any spare resistors, then leave the driver's side
airbag connected and fish in the dash until you are able to remove the
passenger's side airbag. Same process as before. Unhook the wires,
energize the ignition and test to see if the airbag warning light comes on
(it should). When it does, again measure the resistance across the circuit
with your multimeter. Record the value.
4. Go to Electronics store (Radio Shack or equivalent) and buy
resistors that are the same ohm values as the ones you recorded during your
test. You'll probably need to solder on some sort of connectors so that the
resistors will be able plug into the airbag wiring. Install everything and
test one airbag at a time so that you can determine which one is causing the
light to remain on (if that happens) after you've installed the resistors.
Not terribly scientific, and I haven't done this yet to see if it really
works, but it seems like it should work just fine.
Jeff
97 DE</div>
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>From what I understand from those who have removed their air bags (Mike
Bigus, et al) it's not very difficult. The trick is getting the idiot light
out. Many have just removed the dash cluster bulb, but there is a better
way.
Last month's Car and Driver had an article on airbag removal and explained
step by step how to do it. The advantage here is the car's computer and
warning light system still think that the airbag assembly is fully in tact,
plus you don't have to screw with anything in the cluster (one less thing to
break)
Here's a summary of how to get the idiot light out w/o just removing the
bulb from the cluster:
1. Remove the steering wheel and unhook the wires to the airbag.
Energize the ignition and the airbag warning light should appear.
2. Use a multimeter to determine the resistance across the driver's
side airbag circuit with the airbag reconnected and the ignition energized.
Record that value. (If you have any resistors lying around of that
resistance bridge those the two airbag wires (airbag removed now) and
energize the ignition. The light should be out.)
3. If you don't have any spare resistors, then leave the driver's side
airbag connected and fish in the dash until you are able to remove the
passenger's side airbag. Same process as before. Unhook the wires,
energize the ignition and test to see if the airbag warning light comes on
(it should). When it does, again measure the resistance across the circuit
with your multimeter. Record the value.
4. Go to Electronics store (Radio Shack or equivalent) and buy
resistors that are the same ohm values as the ones you recorded during your
test. You'll probably need to solder on some sort of connectors so that the
resistors will be able plug into the airbag wiring. Install everything and
test one airbag at a time so that you can determine which one is causing the
light to remain on (if that happens) after you've installed the resistors.
Not terribly scientific, and I haven't done this yet to see if it really
works, but it seems like it should work just fine.
Jeff
97 DE</div>
09-25-2006, 07:43 PM
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didnt think about that, i was afraid the thing would go off in my hand just my luck. LMAO lmao.gif
10-22-2006, 09:44 AM
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Vehicle: 2004 Volkswagen Jetta GLI
Alex01tib have you tired the resistor thing for the air bag and does it work...
also if you take the fuse out underneath the driver side does that control for both airbags or just the like
also if you take the fuse out underneath the driver side does that control for both airbags or just the like
09-15-2007, 10:38 PM
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So does anybody know what value of resistor i could use for the airbag and if it'll work??
I need to know this becuase, hopefully, I'll be changeing my steering wheel this upcomming week.
I need to know this becuase, hopefully, I'll be changeing my steering wheel this upcomming week.
09-19-2007, 10:54 PM
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Ok, hopefully this question will be answered.
My aftermarket steering wheel has a horn, but i can't get it to work, do i have to splice the black wire that comes beside the one with the yellow one (air bag) and connect one of the wires that come with the horn to that?
I'm asking this because my hub came with another wire, and i'm guessing it's ground cause it goes to the back of the hub and doenst come out, then there are 2 conectors on the horn with only one wire. So that wire is supposed to be power and the other conector is for the ground, got that connected. I just want to be sure that i have to cut the stock wire that conected to the round part were everything was conected....
sorry if i didnt make my self clear, i just dont know the names of the parts... but hopefully the guys that have aftermarket steering wheels will understand.
Basically i just want to know how you guys connected your horns. laugh.gif
My aftermarket steering wheel has a horn, but i can't get it to work, do i have to splice the black wire that comes beside the one with the yellow one (air bag) and connect one of the wires that come with the horn to that?
I'm asking this because my hub came with another wire, and i'm guessing it's ground cause it goes to the back of the hub and doenst come out, then there are 2 conectors on the horn with only one wire. So that wire is supposed to be power and the other conector is for the ground, got that connected. I just want to be sure that i have to cut the stock wire that conected to the round part were everything was conected....
sorry if i didnt make my self clear, i just dont know the names of the parts... but hopefully the guys that have aftermarket steering wheels will understand.
Basically i just want to know how you guys connected your horns. laugh.gif
01-13-2008, 02:02 PM
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Bringing up an old thread...I am thinking about ordering a horn off ebay...i'm guessing this ones fine. eBay Steering Wheel but i'm wondering if LNHeart got his to work. If anyone else has done this, did you guys get the airbag light off?
01-13-2008, 02:19 PM
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Vehicle: 1999 Hyundai Tiburon
i removed both my airbags (cause i hate all airbags), and all i had to do was pull out 2 or 3 fuses that are labled airbag in the fuse box cover in the drivers kick pannel. my airbag light is off and everything but my horn works. my horn has never worked though unsure why. I even tried the airbags factory set up, i was geussing my horns were bad.
