Removing Steering Wheels

1967 Shelby Steering Wheel

As most folks who have removed (or attempted to remove) a 67 Shelby wheel have found, there are no threaded puller holes, thus making it a very difficult job. It often takes repeated soakings with various products like liquid wrench, Kroil, etc. to loosen the chemical bond that years have created. After the soakings, it generally takes two people working, one to provide the pull on the wheel (not too hard, though!), moving around the circle of the wheel and tugging back and forth. The other has the hammer and brass drift, providing impact to the column center (while being careful not to butcher the threads. It may take several sessions of this before the wheel pops free. Guess this explains why so many cars still have the original wheel intact, even though thieves are highly aware of it's value. And so few original horn buttons...

Another suggestion is to use a regular steering wheel puller tool, but in place of the threaded bolts I used nylon plastic quick ties of substantial girth ( large and wide ones) and attached them to the spokes of the wheel and adjusted their length to ensure even pulling stress on the wheel. Take care to protect spokes with padding and use enough ties for strength. Ensure the flat bar on the puller tool is wide enough to allow the ties to be at 90 degree angle from flat bar to point of attachment on the spokes to obtain removal force on the direction you need to pull the wheel of the shaft. ( you do not want the pulling stress to pull on the spokes so as to change their angle.) A little time spent in the set up will ensure a positive result.