Empi VDM steering wheel repair/save

[restojohnny]

Joshua posted this steering wheel for sale a few weeks ago and it needed some serious repair the spokes were bent the one spoke was broken off and twisted away from the rim BUT the rim didn’t have the 12 O’clock crack like 99% of them do and was amazingly still straight and the horn ring wasn’t broken so pretty much missing the Hornbutton and the plastic bezel for the horn ring. I made an offer Joshua excepted it and when it arrived I got in it bro’s.

Pics as received and taken apart to repair-

Pics of the major damage -

Spoke repair - took the torch heated here and there knocked it around
With my rubber mallet and body hammers and dollies -

The spokes are all straight and the bad spoke is lined up and ready to weld after I had welded the spike to the rim I was able to straighten out the spokes alot
Better -

All spokes and hub area and rim are now straight and in useable condition -

This is it for now only repairs left is to repair the small cracks on the spokes edges and the parts where I broke off on the worst spoke for the welding repair I’ll be using an epoxy to fill in the spots where needed and sand/shape the areas where I put epoxy. Did I say epoxy enough LoL pics
Later when k get to finishing it off.
_________________
** HELL YEAH I'LL SELL IT TO YOU**
O.G. POMONA VULTURE
$$ SWAPMEET MAFIA $$
53 LHD, LH cargo door standard kombi
54 Pre-A Porsche
55 oval ribbed door non-semiphore
56 semiphore ragtop
63 notchback (work in progress)
67 OG black paint beetle sedan empi accessorized
67 original Empi GTV beetle convertible !!
67 euro squareback
67 deluxe walkthru (work in progress)
67 convertible ghia (work in progress)

"STAY OUTTA MY BACKYARD !!! "

[Joshua Peterson]

Looking beautiful! As just a small bit of backstory, I found the wheel in a '68 bug shell in a junkyard. I had no clue what it was but took it home. After I learned what it was I hoped to do the restoration myself, but after sitting on the project for a few months I knew I had neither the expertise or money to pull it off properly.
I'm so glad you got it and are showing the rebuild process on here!!! Can't wait to see the final product!