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MG MGB Technical - Steering Wheel Spoke rust

Has anyone come up with an appropriate means of restoring the spokes on the 70-71-72-73 (and other years) steering wheels? Mine have started to rust - especially on the back side. And the left hand spoke is rusting - most likely from water that must be seeping/dripping in while driving.

It spokes seem sot be aluminized steel. I don't want to scrub and this will scratch everything up - that may be the only course though. I imagine a scrub and then refinish with a silver and clear is about as good as you can get.

The leatherette grip is is great condition on my wheel - I just hate to see the spokes start to rust.

Thanks in advance,

Jeff
J Delk

Have you tried anything yet? I guess if I had the same problem, I'd start with the least aggressive products first. Metal polishes? Toothpaste? CLR? Then you might try a piece of Scotchbrite. Test the results on a small area of the back of the wheel to see what effect it has on the surface (gloss).

'
Derek Nicholson

i had a 70 gt with the 3 spok with 5 holes in each spoke
the wheel was very rusty so we used a D.A sander with a fine grade disc on it which gave the same type of pattination as the original wheel after it had been left for a couple of weeks
ste
Ste Brown

I used hand sanding on my rusty wheel, keept using finer paper and finished it with a coarse rubbing compound. I did it several years ago and it's still rust free and looks good but not up to show car standards.

Clifton
Clifton Gordon

I used a palm sander with a very fine polishing grit on my 72B spoke. I also used it on all of the chrome and the windshield frame. Made the old 72 look grand, and not like a piece of junk that I thought I would have to replace. Check it out: http://www.mgb79.com

It doesn't scratch and leaves a nice natural looking finish.
James Huggins

Jeff,
My 73 MGB had the same problem. No matter what I did the rust would come back. It was a real pain and looked awful. So I cleaned the spokes - sanded them clean, primed them and painted them black. I have had so many comments about how much people like my steering wheel and how it goes along with the interior so well. I have not had any rust problems in over four years. Just a thought. If you want to see it in a picture, let me know.
Merry Christmas.
Robert
Robert Browning

Hey,

I'm glad yours looks great black. I tried painting mine black first, didn't like it at all. Sanded it all off back to natural.
James Huggins

I sanded, primed and painted the spokes the same color as the car. Looks good - gets a bit of attention - end of rust.
Paul Landry

Jeff,

I used 'brass wool' and metal polish that I sourced from Eastwood a few years ago. This cleaned things up nicely. Three grades of the wool were available, fine, medium, and course.

Regards,

Larry C. '74 B/GT
Larry C.

Modellers steel wool, not the type for cleaning pots and pans. Stroke in the direction of the 'grain'. Since the little bit of 'rust' that was apparent had taken 20 years to develop, and shows no signs of returning 16 years on, I've left mine the natural finish.
Paul Hunt 2

I just used SOS pads on my '73. Cleaned the spokes up nicely with no damage to the finish - lasted for several years until the foam on the rim started deteriorating. About the same time, Moss began offering the bolt-on wood wheels for '70-'76 models. That's the ultimate solution as far as I'm concerned.

FWIW,
Allen
Allen Bachelder

Metal polish.
use a good metal polish. The one I happened to buy was is autosol shine. Bought from an auto shop, not expensive and goes a long way. I suspect it is just an alkaline paste of wax and fine abrasive.
This is very effective. Just put some on a cloth and rub on, rub off, then a bit more. It's quite fast acting. I used this on various stainless and aluminium parts on my car. I've seen others use it on the window frame and laterly there has been a local fad of polishing up coils, SU's, manifolds etc. It will get you a 'chrome' finish. It is very long lasting because it reduces the effective surface area that may be exposed to oxygen and leaves a waxy coating, that feels very smooth. The most extreme example where I've seen this used is on the raw aluminium beams on a catmaran sail boat that has been in and out of salt water for the last 10 years. Still looks like chrome.
It also cleans up tatty bits of plastic. I used it on my rocker switches. Made them look new. Although in this case I used some 1600 grade wet and dry sandpaper first (they were very knocked around, scratches etc). You might need to do the same if the rust is deep, but try just the polish first. You should be able to get a perfect finish with out too much effort. The main drawback is that once you've finished shining up one component, you get a bit carried away with your success and pretty soon you're polishing your coil and plastic switches etc.
Peter
P.N. Sherman

One thing for sure, if you're going to sand metal, only use sanding paper made with compatible metal, otherwise you'll be inducing disimilar metal corrosion.
Aluminum wheel = aluminum oxide paper, etc..Steel wheel = steel wool. Using steel wool on an aluminum wheel= corrosion. Even if you think it's clean and prime it, the rust wil eventually come through.
Frank

This thread was discussed between 23/12/2006 and 30/12/2006

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