Recovering a leather steering wheel. Hard to do?

A local GRM'er, CorsePerVita has done steering wheel repairs as a side business before.

He seemed to enjoy it, but it does seem a bit time consuming. He taught himself I believe.

I'll see if I can get him to chime in here about his experiences and if he has any tips or tricks to share.

Thanks to you guys I have ordered a leather cover from Wheelskins for my B2200. I am looking forward to trying this out!

Heyoooo. Thanks for the Ping, Stefan. I ran a business doing it for a while but I just don't have time these days so mostly I do it for my own enjoyment.

I'll share some of what I've learned.

• It is somewhat easy if you have a skin or something that is already torn on your steering wheel so you can rip it off and make somewhat of a template. If you can do this, it's easier to cut one out and glue the template to the wheel and hand shave it.
• That fake pleather crap won't hold up for E36 M3. If you want cheap, good leather, either buy a hide from a local leather shop (it'll cost you maybe $40 for some decent upholstery grade leather). Do NOT go ultrathin leather. Get something that is pliable and a little stretchable, but not something thick like cow hide/rawhide. I found that deer hide works incredibly well.
• Ask if the dye is rated to hold up against UV beating. If it isn't you'll end up with a fading steering wheel.
• If you don't want to buy an entire hide, ask a local leather shop if they sell scrap. Many do by the pound. You can usually tell them the dimensions you need (width, height, thickness), and and it's usually $10-20 a pound. Get a few pounds that'll cover your wheel and you're gold. At the very least, if you make a big mistake you're working with scraps and not wasting a perfectly good hide. I don't like to waste hide. I believe in using as much of it as possible.
• Do not use cotton thread. It will eventually basically rot into nothing, snap, and you'll end up with a crap job when the sun beats on it. I prefer to use 69 to 92 weight Nylon. Thread Exchange is a great and reputable website with damn near any color you want. Kevlar is better, but colors are limited and it's far more expensive.

A few sewing tricks:

• When you cut a template around the wheel, leave about 2" of excess in the length. You'll essentially want to use this excess to create a seam to sew it together. I use a very old school singer that is gear driven instead of belt driven. A standard, weak, belt driven machine that is residential grade is going to have a hard time getting through the leather without overworking the belt/motor.
• Use a heavy duty needle for the sewing machine. Something very sharp, with cornered edges. This will help punch through it. Do not use incredibly long, or too short of a stitch pattern, as you need a decent distance between the holes in the leather so it doesn't tear.
• Leather stretches, so do not do incredibly loose stitches as you hand sew. Also do not do them so tight that you're putting a lot of stress on the thread. Leather can tear over time if you make it too tight. My rule of thumb is to pull up and through, pull it lightly taught, and continue. It should push down on the leather, hold it there, with the ability to get a thin needle forced through if you really tried, but not so loose that you can easily get one under, if that makes sense.
• Buy a pack of those shaped razor blades that you'd use in the fancy box cutters. Not the thin, crappy, flat razorblades. Use the good steel razorblades that are almost triangular. You can get a giant box of them. It cuts through hide like butter and makes trimming the leather a piece of cake.
• Use a very good glue. Not one that is too runny as it'll soak into the leather. Not something that's going to be super goopy. I prefer to use Barge All Purpose Cement. It starts out fairly thin and tends to get sticky very very quick, within 20-30 seconds of being applied once you thin it. This makes putting the skin down on the wheel a piece of cake. My rule is put the skin down, use the brush lid along the sides of the skin, hold for 20 seconds. Do the other side. hold for 20 seconds. DO NOT GLUE THE CENTER where you will sew.
• On the lip where you have the excess of 2 inches, turn the skin inside out so the tanned side is on the outside of the wheel. Now wrap it the length of the wheel and mark with something where they will meet. Account for a small amount of stretching (a little further than where you marked). This is where you will sew your seam in the sewing machine. I tend to go a little overkill here and do a figure 8 knot on these so they don't pop out from stress. You can then flip it back to the other side and see how much excess needs to be shaved off the seam. I usually leave a little less than half an inch, maybe 1/4 of each flap in excess to flip inside the wheel skin.
• If you are repairing an old steering wheel and are just repairing the stitching, do NOT sew into that leather until you've suppled it up. Go get some leather lotion, apply, toss it in a dry cleaner bag for a day or two. Come back, check on it, and make sure it isn't dry. THEN sew. You will rip dry leather. Period.

Here's a good photo example of moving the skin without being trimmed around the wheel and you can see the seam on the bottom.

Vendors I use:

• Thread exchange
• Oregon Leather Company. Eugene, OR. (local to me, nice guys, take orders over the phone and sells scrap)
• Fabric Empire (for things like imitation alcantara/ultrasuede/etc, custom fabrics)

I can post a bit more later sometime if you want more information, but that's about all I can post without having pics of "this is how xyz" works.

In reply to corsepervita:

Awesome, yes please!

petegossett wrote: In reply to corsepervita: Awesome, yes please!

Maybe I can make a video or something, it'd be a lot easier to explain.

Corsepervita thanks for sharing! That is some great info. I also look forward to any more tips you share in the future.