I have worked on 3 steering wheels with varying success. I would like to share two thoughts with those that want to try your own restoration.
First, epoxy and hard rubber are so different in terms of hardness and how they respond to sanding. Instead of leaving the epoxy "proud" and relying on sanding to level, I now level the epoxy before curing using a knife blade. Scrape at right angle to the crack. This minimizes that amount of sanding necessary.
Second, expect some/most of the cracks to reappear at some time. Just for something to do, I restored an Advance Design steering wheel and hung it on the wall in my garage. Five years later, with summer temps 120+ F and winter temps 40 F, it still looked beautiful. When I restored my COE I used this steering wheel and very fine cracks reappeared in a few months. I think this is because people entering and exiting the COE use the steering wheel to pull themselves up and down, putting a fair amount of stress on the wheel. It still looks very good but it sort of surprised me. I then installed repo door arm rests so people could grab that instead and the cracks have remained the same.
Kent
