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I have four small cracks in the ivory paint of my 49 steering wheel. Is there some easy way of filling these before they get worse? I would hope this is a common thing and has been solved without removing the wheel.

Just trying bring my baby back to how it was.
Fred

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If it is a painted hard rubber wheel there is an excellent thread and some photos posted when KevinAZ redid his 55 wheel. Same methods would apply to yours.packardinfo.com/xoops/html/modules/newbb ... .php?post_id=102686#forumpost102686

If it is the deluxe wheel which was cast plastic in a translucent ivory shade I think the only solution would be a recast. Unless it is a phenomenal color match I would think anything used to fill cracks in those would probably stand out against the still decent surfaces. Complete recasts are in the $1K range today.

Oy vey! Yes it would be the deluxe plastic cast in ivory. I thought maybe a clear liquid of some kind would able to meld the cracked surfaces together. A grand is a bit much for those tiny cracks.

My '49 wheel is brown but the under plastic is very dark brown or black. The common method is using PC-7 epoxy putty to fill the cracks, then you sand them and paint. I started but never finished mine yet...
Looking at those cracks, they're dark inside. So either they have accumulated dirt or the under material is dark.
If I had this problem,
1. I'd take a dental pick and clean out the grooves down to clean material.
2. Clean with rubbing alcohol and dry. Alcohol will also cut epoxy for clean up but don't thin with it. It won't cure right.
3. Fill with a matching color epoxy. I'd use slow cure and tint. It's about the same shade starting off. May not even show. Even fingernail polish in the right shade would work, but you have to apply several coats to fill the space. There might be some epoxy sticks or tint kits for fixing plastics or wood that might also work.
4. Sand and buff out.

As plastic ages it shrinks due to continued polymerization and loss of volatiles/break down products. The material in the crack surface can oxidize so it won't "grow" or heal back with solvent, you have to fill it. That's why you want to dig it out first, to get a good "tooth".

The plastic along the rim of my steering wheel has split, leaving a slight gap. I don't think this is particularly unusual. As plastic gets old and dries, it tends to contract. At points where it is stressed or fragile, it breaks apart. Luckily for me, my steering wheel is black.

Here is a link to a page about restoring steering wheels:

blog.ecklerschevelle.com/steering-wheel-restoration/

Good luck!

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That's a bit much for my tiny cracks.

Thanks Howard for posting my initial link on the steering wheel repair. I hadn't read that in several years. I enjoyed the walk down memory lane.

Bottom line is that cracks are caused by shrinkage. Only was to fix it is to fill the crack with epoxy or a modern non-shrink body filler.
If you can tint some epoxy to match the wheel then you could get by with just filling the cracks, and it would look pretty acceptable. But the only way to make it look great is to fill, prime and paint the entire wheel.

This is my wheel that had cracks:

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The epoxy fill methods work well on the standard plastic or hard rubber painted wheels. On the deluxe ivory or beige translucent wheels which may have still been made of Tenite in the late 40s I doubt there will be much in the way of repair that will not show. Possibly someone who is a master at color matching could mix something out of one of the modern casting plastics that would blend in but that is a question.

as small as those cracks are, just call them survivor "patina" and ask more money for it...
I still think they could be fixed easily as outlined before. If it's cleaned/prepared properly, the epoxy will bound to the butyrate. Color matching is not so difficult since now the dark is what is showing up(contrast). If lightened up to equal tone but not exactly the same color, it'll be less distinguishable. Buff out and the shine will also cover it.
Of course you have to have a pigment supply. If you want 100% match -> air brush.
ps: alternates.
What I did on my Caddy, was buy one of those sew-on leather wraps to cover the whole unsightly steering wheel that was improperly repaired. They cost about $80. I got mine from "Wheelskins". Takes about an hour or so to install. Looks great in two tone, matches interior. May not cover that area but one option, some sort of wheel cover.