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Smalller steering wheel with manual steering

2K views 13 replies 10 participants last post by  bry66 
#1 ·
Lately the original steering wheel on my '66 has been bugging me. I'm not a big guy and I sit with my seat kind of far forward. And because of that, I'm always knocking my knees on the steering wheel getting in and out of the car, and even sometimes while I'm driving. It constantly gets grimy and sticky too, no matter what I use to clean it or how often. It drives me kind of crazy.

Anyways, my car has manual steering, which I've become very accustomed to and driving a manual steering car does not bother me one bit. With that in mind, what should I expect if I replace my steering wheel with a smaller diameter aftermarket wheel? Looks like there's a lot to choose from in the 13" to 14" range, so that's probably where I would start looking. Should I expect any big difference in steering effort, and will that be small enough that I should stop bumping into it all the time?
 
#3 ·
Figure out how much smaller the wheel is that you are considering (old wheel diameter divided by new wheel diameter). that how much more force it will take to turn the new wheel. So if the original wheel is 16" and you go to a 14", it is about 15% harder to turn, a 13" wheel would be closer to 25% harder. I'm rounding numbers off here.
 
#5 ·
Thanks for the input guys. I figured going from 16" to 13.5" would require around 20ish% more steering effort, and I'm sure I can live with that no problem. I'm gonna go ahead and give it a shot!
 
#6 ·
After the steering wheel swap & tooling around a while you will become jacked!
My aunt never had a problem with manual steering in her '67, nor does my little 5"1 wife. It isn't a big deal as long as you are rolling, and it shows how much force it takes when "dry cranking" the wheel while stationary (and why it is a bad idea to do so).
Many folks seeking horsepower advantage went with 396s & manual steering. Or later 454s & COPOSs as well.
 
#10 ·
I put a tilt column in all my cars just for that reason. But I have a bit of a, uh, stomach!
 
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#13 ·
Not a direct answer to your question, but... my ‘68 had the stock overboosted four-turn P/S box and a stock-ish sized steering wheel when I bought it. I put a higher-effort quicker-ratio box on it and it felt good. But when I finally settled on the steering wheel I liked, which was about 2” smaller, suddenly I hated the steering feel. I was surprised that the effort increased as much as it did with just the steering wheel change. I drove it for about six months this way figuring I’d get used to it. In the end, I kept the smaller wheel but reinstalled the stock steering box.

Bottom line is that the right feel is subjective. But the amount of that change in feel just by going to a smaller wheel was way more than I expected. With manual steering I’d tread very lightly and at least try a used steering wheel before committing to something expensive when changing sizes.
 
#14 ·
Thanks again guys for the tips.

I ended up getting the Grant 838 which is a 13.5" diameter. Going from 16" to 13.5" makes a big difference in the way the looks and feels in your hands, maybe a little more than I expected, but I'm not knocking my legs on it anymore. Steering effort seems maybe just a little greater but nothing very drastic at all. Granted my car already has a 16:1 steering box and I have about 4.5* caster on my UMI arms, so I'm probably already pretty accustomed to it. But anyways I thought I'd just follow up to report that the difference in steering effort seems minimal in case anyone out there is wondering.
 
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