The 'E' Type Forum

Hi, does anyone know where I can obtain the steering wheel rim wood kit from for the early 61 exposed inner rim wheels.?
I have tried MDR/ Jacob Engineering and no luck there.

There is a bloke who advertises the two piece wood kits on ebay for around £60 plus postage..he does both the early and later type wheels....just keep an eye on ebay

Here is an ad for a later one.. I have no connection to the seller and no idea how good they are but he has 100% positive feedback. J

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/E-TYPE-JAGUA ... ect=mobile

I had a later style rim for my 63 fhc from him.
Very Good quality and after light sanding with medium grade wire wool, 6 coats of teak oil followed by 4 coats of semi gloss lacquer, I’m very pleased.
They can be finished in any number of ways to suit you.

The guy is
classic woodwork
nicholas reeves
22 KIMBERLEY ROAD
solihull
West Midlands
B92 8PU
United Kingdom
Phone:0121|7336898
Email:nfreeves@btinternet.com

Wow, great efforts and info. Thank's. Ill be on the phone tomorrow to Nick Reeves - so fingers crossed.


Excelent info on that wheel refurbishment too.

The Coventry Timber Bending Co Ltd wheel used laminated beech. All the refurbished ones seem to use Mahogany as used on the later wheels. Depends how correct you want to be. More info here: http://forum.etypeuk.com/viewtopic.php?p=35111#p35111

I think you will find that they also used white mahogany for the early rims.

I find that surprising given the white mahogany is from the Australian eucalyptus tree and has a greasy feel when touched. The European beech is widely used for furniture framing and carcass construction, for engineering purposes and, specifically, in plywood as seen in the E-Type wheel. The big giveaway though is the weight as white mahogany is 25% denser/heavier than beech and used for things like fence posts, engineering poles and railway sleepers.

I believe the later CBT wheels from early 1962 on-wards were a laminated ply of beech and mahogany which gives them a less blonde colour.

Moto Lita still make very pale laminated D-type wheels. No idea what wood, but it ain’t mahogany. Presumably they’d replace a very early rim for a price?

As far as I can see their D-Type wheel is beech but not laminated.

Tip

Just remember, when your assembling / gluing the wooden frame, with the metal frame face down, (that's to say the slightly recess holes where the securing screws/bolts go through into the horn area, ) the top wooden piece is the fully rounded one, the bottom wooden piece is the one with the rippled indents in the back.

I've restored a few of these, using the same sources for wood etc, and trust me this is the kind of ( relatively ) expensive mistake you only make once.

Having a lovely finished steering wheel, with the hand grip ripples on the uppermost face just doesn't look good.

Heuer wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 04, 2019 2:30 pm

As far as I can see their D-Type wheel is beech but not laminated.

If I wasn’t in Chesterfield instead of Maryland I’d nip out to the shop and try a closeup pic David. It certainly looks the typical blonde beech colour but is built up of many regular layers about a millimeter thick, or maybe 1.5-2 mm (I’m guessing from here). There being no bold grain or knots, the layers are not visible unless you get close.

Sorry, I’m a bit late to this thread. Peter, I have an original wheel, complete. The wood is not varnished but waxed. The only area where it has been altered is there are more holes around where the wheel attaches to the boss. They would be covered up anyway. I’m happy to sell, if it suits.

Have you got me mixed up with someone else Barry? I didn’t mention wood finish and I'm not looking for a wheel. I was just adding to David’s comments on white woods.

I will never look at railway sleepers quite the same way again :-)

Pete