Steering Wheel Center Pad - Vinyl Cover + Stainless Steel Emblem

[kajcienski]

Thought I would post another project I just finished! This is a center pad recover with an added DMC emblem in stainless steel letters. I live in NYC so we have some great suppliers of all sort of faux leather and such. After 2 hours sifting through fabrics, I found this vinyl at a place called B&J Fabrics (faux leather vinyl with a suede backing). It really matches the rest of the steering wheel amazingly well (I brought the center pad and a bunch of pictures to the store) from the shade of black in various lights, to the sheen and texture of the original worn leather. Covering was pretty easy. You start by stapling the vinyl behind the top of the pad and contour it to fit the curved shape. Then you spray adhesive on the pad and stretch the vinyl over it tightly. The material adheres very well and didn't have too much difficulty with it. You then staple and stretch the rest of the fabric around all of the contours and trim it up. It admittedly does not fit as gracefully as the original due to the added layer (I'm being very picky though) - but I much prefer the improved look over a very slight fit issue. I purchased the stainless steel letters from DCS - they are actually for freshening the letters on the center of the wheels. The letters have big quality control issue (you are warned) so it is a matter of picking through all 12 of them until you have a good set of 3 (additional sanding was required to get them looking truly correct and graining them). I'm very happy with how it looks and wanted to pass on this weekend DIY project!

NOTE: As a side, I originally wanted to recreate the wheel of Pilot 20 (look it up, pretty spiffy - they use it in one of the main brochures for the car). I found a very close match on a 93 Peugeot and designed a plastic logo insert that closely matches the original. After getting further into the project and no luck finding a steering wheel for sale in really great shape, I scrapped the project. Would be cool if someone went for it though!

1072410725

[Spittybug]

I purchased the stainless steel letters from DCS - they are actually for freshening the letters on the center of the wheels.

DCS? I'm not familiar. Some of us have Momo or knockoff steering wheels and those letters would look great in the center. Can you elaborate on DCS please? Thanks.

[kajcienski]

DCS? I'm not familiar. Some of us have Momo or knockoff steering wheels and those letters would look great in the center. Can you elaborate on DCS please? Thanks.

Delorean Car Show

http://deloreancarshow.com/

Again, I must warn that the quality control on these letters is poor so be prepared to further detail them.

[dmc6960]

DCS? I'm not familiar. Some of us have Momo or knockoff steering wheels and those letters would look great in the center. Can you elaborate on DCS please? Thanks.

I was going to say the DCS Store, but upon looking around I dont see the letter inserts available. Perhaps they were used and you got the last set.

http://www.robomerchant.net/deloreancarshow/

[kajcienski]

I was going to say the DCS Store, but upon looking around I dont see the letter inserts available. Perhaps they were used and you got the last set.

http://www.robomerchant.net/deloreancarshow/

Hmmm... I can't find them either. There were 4 or 5 sets left a few weeks back.

[Nicholas R]

I bought a set directly from Ken several years ago. I have them in the wheel caps. In the caps they look great. Yes I will admit they are not absolutely perfect, but they're pretty good for how tiny they are; plus you're typically putting them on top of an already silver surface.. The problem was that either the waterjet or laser cutter (cant remember what was used) has a kerf that is very close to the size of the cuts into the letters. For their original purpose I think they look awesome. If you're going to use put them on your steering wheel right in front of your face though, you'll definitely notice the tiny imperfections more.