Will a steering wheel melt?

I'm having problems removing the steering wheel from the postal column I plan on using for my saginaw conversion. My homemade steering wheel puller worked fine on the stock column, but I've bent it into a pretzel trying to remove the wheel from the postal column.

I'm considering using a propane/MAP torch to heat the hub, but I'm afraid the wheel might catch fire or melt. Not too concerned about the wheel itself as its already cracked and I'm not planning on using it.

 

Yep it will start to melt at about 350* buy 600* it will catch fire. Thats typical of plastics, I have put out alot of fires at work after we had to melt plastic out of the electrical boxes on our plastic molds and then rewire the hot runner system, did 2 molds last weekend!

 

if you dont care about the wheel, heat up those splines. thats what i did with my postal column. it'll just smell really bad, but it wont catch fire. also, i tried a bunch of different pulling methods, but given i didnt care about the wheel, the easiest thing was to heat up the splines, then grab the shaft of the column and slide it into a vise (leave the vice loose) and pull the column toward you slamming the underside of the wheel against the jaws of the vice. mine popped off after some heat and 3-5 whacks. obviuosly if you want to keep the wheel, this is not the way to go....

 

well mine never caught fire, but i concentrated the flame on the splines and tried my best to keep it off the plastic.

 

I ruined one by loosening the nut to the end, and hammering it (thinking the impact would knock it off the splines)! The nut jumped threads and is still crossthreaded to this day sitting in the garage

 

I've soaked the sucker in Liquid Wrench for about 4 days straight now. The top of my homemade puller is 1/4" flat stock and now its U-shaped. The stainless threaded rods are bent now as well. This dang wheel just doesn't want to budge.

The good news is that my puller worked like a charm on my repro wheel so that came off without a problem.

 

I removed mine by laying the whole column on the work bench with the wheel hanging off the edge. successive blows with a dead blow hammer to the underside of each spoke took the wheel off in about 3 minutes without further damage..... $.02

 

My homemade puller uses 3/4" stock.

 

Not everybody has a bridgeport in the garage.

 

True!!!

 

Wish I did, but then I wouldn't know what do to with it anyway. R)

 

copied one off of Vern's site used 2x6 oak worked good haven't broke one in a long time.

 

Mine's similar to that, but its made of metal. I used two 1.5" muffler clamps, some grade five bolts, some light tabs and some stainless threaded rod I had laying around and a piece of 1/4" flat stock. Cost was about $10.

Gave me a chance to burn off some flux core wire. The welds are ugly, but they held (well at least the second did on one side)

 

i just gave up and got a different colum. funny thing is my shaft would not come out of the ross box sooo i took everthing in the ross steering system out as a whole. now the stuff is just sitting on the garage floor.

 

There's a worm gear on the end of the ross shaft, unless you take the box apart it won't come out.

 

tried that. i gave up too easily saying i would get it later. since i dont have a floor right now i have a big hole everything fit through rather nicely.

 

Okay, the precise application of force applied via a 3 lb mini-sledge did the trick and the wheel has been seperated from the column. Unfortunately, the steering wheel did not survive the procedure.

Does anyone have further ideas on rebuilding the column ie how it comes apart? I'd like to replace the bearings as it has a slight binding and would like to clean up and paint the cover. As a reminder this is a postal column and not a Ross column.

Thanks.

 

I rebuilt mine. If i recall correctly there is a snap ring at the bottom of the shaft. Pull this off and the shaft slides out the top of the column. there is a bearing "cup" on each end of the shaft. In these "cups" are a bunch of little balls. I believe the cups are held together to retain the balls via a snap ring of sorts. Its been about 3 months since I did this, so I don't recall the procedure 100 percent. I did it without the aid of a manual. Its pretty straight forward. All I did was clean up the balls and cups and reassemble with new grease. It spins nice and easy now. It was amazing how much crud and dried up grease was in those cups along with the balls.