Hello everyone,

I recently decided to rebuild my stock steering wheel and wrap it with leather. I got the kit from All Gun Leather in Florida. There are two options with this kit. Leather wrap on the plastic or making your steering like the 70’s 911RS which has a thicker grip. Basically, the plastic steering gets covered with felt then wrapped with leather. The key for this project is patience.

I first sanded down and repainted the spokes

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Then I fitted the felt and cut it to size. It needs to wrap around and join but without any overlap.

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Then I sprayed some adhesive and glued the felt cutting around the plastic part of the spoke.

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Cross stitching is the next step. This is fairly easy. You just need a length of thread and a needle at each end (all supplied with the kit). For the thread, I estimated about 6 to 8 times the peripheral length that I was going to stitch.

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I started with the two short areas between the spokes, then the bottom part, and finally the top. The leather is pre punched which helps a lot but you have to be careful and count the number of holes to make sure they match. Sometime you need to adjust.

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Once the work is done, you finish the job using a heat gun to smooth out the wrinkles, making sure you protect the treads because they will melt.

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Bolt on and enjoy your ride.

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This project was a slow process and took about 5 nights of stitching (1-2h/n, one area at a time). I thought it was fun and the satisfaction when finished is well worth the work.
Thank you to Mr.Kona for the inspiration.

WOW! great job.

Beautiful, but please explain how to create that double stitching?
Is it double threaded as you go along stitching?
Is there adhesive over the felt?

There is no adhesive between the felt and the leather. The leather is tight around it when you stich it so it doesn't slip.

For cross stiching, look at this youtube and your set to go.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFBAwFjLhHo

......Really cool...I like that!
(Mr. kona)

Terrific job. I know it costs about $350 to have it done by the pros but I don't think I have the patience to do it myself. Most of the home wrapped ones I've seen have big wrinkles. Yours looks great!

ps - I think you meant Alan Gun - right?

Wow! That looks great!

The texture appears like it would match the dash better?

Yes, Alan Gun.
As for wrinkles, patience, preciseness and thoroughness...and heat gun!

That turned out really great. Did the felt come in the kit or did you just add it to the leather kit? My wheel looks terrible - I thought I would have to buy aftermarket. That looks doable if I take my time.

Very doable and taking your time is key.

There two available kits:
one to recover the plastic steering
one to recover the plastic steering with felt padding.

The one with the felt is called 911RS as it is the same steering as the 914!

The leather would not be the same in the two kits because of the difference in the grip diameter.

Again, patience and making sure the number of holes fit especially when you start stitching and when you're close to an end. For example, if you look closely at this image, you can see 8 stitches from the begining to the inner corner. I started on the fourth hole on the back side leather. Once your done you cut the excess leather off.
The wrinkles will go away with the heat gun but you need to protect the thread because they will melt!

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Awesome job. I thought about trying it at one time, but decided to send it out when the time is right/. I'm not sure I have that kind of patience

Looks fantastic!! You just need to paint the wings of the part that sounds the horn and it'll look perfect!

Great job!

Do the spray painting on the metal part of the horn butterfly too & you'll have a

Good job. Especially for in the bathroom. I can do one wheel watching sunday football on the couch. It does make your fingers sore though. I've done a few stainless spoke foam wheels for my jeeps and k5. Is the thread in the kit waxed? The thread I use is for sewing leather and won't melt but needs to be retreated every few years to keep it from fraying.

That is awesome work Montreal914 did on the steering wheel. If you are lazy (like me!) or have no stitching skills (like me!), consider a ten dollar steering wheel cover from Auto Zone. I like the fact that it makes the steering wheel kinda fat which is easier on the hands. Autocraft makes the cover. I don't know have long it will last but for $10 you can't go wrong.

What paint did you use on the spokes?

Fantastic job!!!!!

Nice job. Alan Gunn redid my sterring wheel and your looks as good as his professional job. Does anyone know how to safely remove the horn pad from the frame to have the frame refinished?

Alan Gunn redid mine a few years back. I would have done the kit but the guy who answered the phone quoted me $175 for "fat wrap" job... Hell, I am not going to bother with 10 hours of stitching when they will do it for $175. Turns out that guy doesn't work there any longer. Seems he quoted a bunch of jobs like that!

That is a good question. I'm not sure this is feasible. That is one of the reasons I didn't paint the wings.

I guess you guys simply mask the pad when you do this?

Oh yeah, as for paint on the spokes, rattle can, primer + two coats of satin black. I believe Mr Kona had a more specific paint for this, but I'm happy with it.

I used Grey-Black from Wolfsburg West. I read somewhere (maybe here, maybe Pelican) that it was a good match for the original paint.

http://www.wolfsburgwest.com/cart/DetailsL...cfm?ID=PAINTL43