The foam rubber on the steering wheel on my wife's 1996 Cavalier is disintegrating. Is it hard to replace the steering wheel? If it's not too bad, anybody have instructions or tips?
If it's really hard I guess I'll just have to wrap it with a steering wheel cover but I don't think she's gonna like that.
Common issue with these cars. I bought a cover from Wal-Mart for $10 in the same graphite gray color. It made it a bit fatter but easy and cheap. If you want to swap out the wheel you will need to remove the air bag from the back with 10mm socket then you can access the main nut and use a puller to remove the steering wheel. Be sure to disconnect the battery so you don't have and accidental discharge of the air bag. That thing can go off with a static charge. BE CARFUL!!!!
Thanks Mike. Replacing the steering wheel sounded too difficult. And all of the slip-on wheel covers that I tried were too fat & ugly. So I added a stitch-on leather steering wheel cover. It took me 4 hours (because I wanted it done well) but now it basically looks and feels like an OEM leather steering wheel. I'm very pleased with the outcome.
FYI, in case it helps others.... After much research, I bought the Superior Automotive "Superskin" (model #58-0700B). Note that this is the wider (harder to find) "Size C" model needed to cover the relatively thick 1995-2000 Cavalier steering wheels. (In the model number the "0700" designates Size C, and the "B" designates Black.) It was $23 on Amazon in January 2015.
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FYI: Instructions from my Amazon product review follow:
This steering wheel cover works well and looks good, but only if you are willing to spend several hours to lace it properly. The dense-foam-rubber steering wheel on my 1996 Chevy Cavalier started to disintegrate, and replacing the steering wheel would have been too difficult. So I tried a few store-bought slip-on covers, but none of them fit tightly enough to look good or feel right. (They made the grip feel too bulky.) This cover (in Size C) worked perfectly.
It should be noted that although my Cavalier's steering wheel is a standard 15" in diameter, it has a fairly thick grip (4-1/8" in diameter) with bulb-outs (4-3/4") at the 10-o'clock & 2-o'clock positions. It is important that you buy the right size (grip-thickness) of Superskin for your car's steering wheel grip-thickness. Size C, perfectly stretched to fit my 3-7/8" grip with no gap (but with a small gap at the bulb-outs). Following are the size and color options.
* Size A is for 3 1/4" - 3 1/2" grips. Part #: 58-0650B (Black), 58-0650T (Tan), 58-0650Y (graY)
* Size B is for 3 3/8" - 3 7/8" grips. Part #: 58-0600B (Black), 58-0600T (Tan), 58-0600Y (graY)
* Size C is for 3 7/8" - 4 1/4" grips. Part #: 58-0700B (Black), 58-0700T (Tan), 58-0700Y (graY)
Good instructions are provided for 3 different lacing styles (slant-stitch, straight-stitch, & cross-stitch). I chose the cross-stitch option which I think looks the best but is probably the most difficult because it requires using 2 needles-- one on each of a single piece of cord (whereby you crisscross back and forth like lacing shoes). Two heavy duty needles and 2 pieces of cord were included. (You only need 1 of the 2 pieces of cord.) Either piece of cord was ample. When I finished lacing, the cord had about 3 feet of cord leftover (18" on either end for a cross-stitch) which was just about perfect.
It took me 4 hours, but I did the job meticulously so that there were practically no gaps or wrinkles at the spokes. Cleanly dealing with my two 2.5"-wide spokes) was, BY FAR, the hardest part of the job.
Note that this cover is a leather strip that is sewn into a loop. (I thought it would be a long strip that I would have to bind together at the ends.) The cover is constructed from 3 pieces of leather-- a longer piece and 2 shorter pieces. I wish it were one piece of leather, but you place the two seams at the spokes and it looks fine. The cover perfectly fit my 15" diameter wheel. I could see it stretching to 16" nicely. But if your wheel is less than 15" in diameter, I think you'd end up with a lot of wrinkles.
Before doing this job, I strongly suggest that you bring (buy if necessary) the following tools.
1) An awl.
2) A hooked awl that you can use to pull the laces tight.
3) A Velcro strip (or 2) that you can use to hold-tight the section that you've just tightened. Packing tape or a spring clamp might work.
4) A good light source-- especially one that you can hang or move so that you can see behind the wheel spokes.
5) A needle nose pliers that you can use to push and pull the needle when needed.
6) A cigarette lighter (to lightly melt the ends of the nylon cord to keep them from fraying).
Tips:
* Line up the seams EXACTLY the way that you want them. Once you tighten the first few stitches, you won't be able to move it.
* Start at the bottom, in the middle of the two spokes.
* Use an awl to widen the holes or it will be very difficult to pass the needle through. Do this a few holes at a time.
* Lace about 7 stitches, pull them tight with a curved (hooked) awl, and then wrap a Velcro strap or packing tape or maybe a spring-clamp near the newest stitch to hold the cover tight while you lace then next few inches.
* Go an extra stitch or two closer to the spoke than you think you'll need because doing so will help pull the cover tight around the spoke so that it doesn't leave a big wrinkle that sticks out from the wheel at the spoke (since there is nothing holding the cover tight to the spoke).
* As you do the job, the cover tends to slightly "increase" in diameter (since, I assume, you keep pulling on it to tighten it and perhaps compress the underlying foam rubber). So beware of this effect and try to push the tightened sections of the cover back slightly towards the completed section-- thereby keeping the unfinished section tighter. This will keep you from ending up with a wrinkle at the bottom when you finish.
