I am in the middle of restoring a 1959 Pontiac SW that had more cracks in it than I could count. After watching a demo video on YouTube, I purchased a product called NuMetal from JEGS. It was about $25 delivered.
I widened each crack with a cutting type bit on my Dremel. I made each crack as thick as a nickel and down to the metal ring if needed. It needs to be deep and wide enough to get the epoxy putty pushed into the groove.
Next you mix putty A and putty B in equal amounts. It cuts off of each stick like taffy. Only cut off a 1/4 inch, otherwise the putty will harden before you have had a chance to work with the full amount. Wear gloves and knead it together until the color is all the same.
Work it into the grooves and try to not leave too much extra on top. Let it harden 24 hrs. However, after about 2 hours, you can carve away a lot of the excess with a sharp knife.
Finally, sand the excess away. This takes a bit of skill so that you don't sand too much away or too little. It is not hard to sand.
I gotta say that the cracks are GONE, GONE, GONE. I will post some pics later. I am thoroughly impressed and I have no training or experience. This steering wheel will look great once I'm done.
I did this 1959 SW as a practice run. Next will be my 1966 Galaxie SW and then my 65 Chevy truck SW.
Oh yeah! I have used maybe one tenth of what came in the NuMetal package so that makes the repair of the cracks very economical. I could probably repair 10 more SW with what I have left.
Get some and try it.
Last edited by Lugnutz; 05/22/2012 2:31 AM.
