The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay 49-53 Steering Wheel/Horn on a 46

Hi folks,

I came into possession of a 49-53 chevy truck steering wheel and would like to mate it to my 46 chevy. I dont have concerns of the physical installation as the spline looks like it matches. However, does anyone have experience with the wiring as to the differences and similarities of the contacts? My horn is not wired at the moment and I have a wire coming out the bottom of my column but have not assessed it's continuity. If there comes a need to rerun a wire up the mast is that an undertaking?

Thanks,
Pretz

The steering wheel does not have any wiring in/on it.

Do you mean you got a whole column? Maybe a picture of what you have would be helpful.

You don't need any stinking horn. No, you are not in a foreign country. . I bought a very expensive after-market horn and it would blow when you turned the corner, this was after less than 6 months of installing it.

I'll grab a quick pic of the parts I've got. From what I recall I have the wheel, horn cap, contact plate and I believe the spring contact as well.

Thanks folks, I'm going to pop the old wheel off and see how it compares. Attached is what I've got from the newer model truck.

I think you will need the correct steering wheel collar which holds the upper end of the horn wire terminal which is spring loaded......if I remember correctly........

Well guess what,,,, I just went out to my truck and it has no collar. Oops, sorry for the error

I can see that they (chevs40s) call out two different steering wheel bearings for 46 and down and 47 and up. I'll report back when I pop off this one to see if the diameter of the contact patch is equivalent and it is just the shape of the bearing as it sits in the mast/column. They look very close in the pics so the 46 may work just fine...if I'm lucky.

Please let us know how it turns out. I'd love to swap my 46 wheel for the later model.

What's wrong with the 46 wheel that everybody wants a later one?

I wouldn't say everyone wants the newer wheel. Some folks may enjoy the original. My original is showing signs of integrity issues and I came across this one for a song. I like the look of the large horn button as well because it ties in the color of the dash and the stainless trim while also looking period. The purists may nay say or note that it is "incorrect" but that's more their problem, not mine.

I was just wondering if there were some specific issue with the '46 wheel since two people in the thread wanted to switch.

Maybe you need to compare the ID of your '46 steering column mast to a 47-54 column to see if the steering wheel bearing of the 47-54 will fit into your steering column?

Hey! wait a minute......I have an extra steering column from my '53 that has the horn contact ring still installed. I'll go and measure its OD, if possible, being already installed.

Just realized, can't measure the OD of the contact ring when it's installed which would be a tad larger than the ID of the steering column itself. The OD of the steering column itself is 1.762".

There's nothing wrong with the 46 wheel, I would switch if I could because the 46 wheel has the arms at 10 and 2, they block the gauges a bit. The arms on the later are somewhat more horizontal. Also (bigger reason), I remember my uncle's 50s delivery vans that had the wheel with the finger ridges on the horizontal arms - used to watch him drive with his hands on the arms, not on the wheel.

Here’s a ‘53 set up

Pretzer46 I think they want you to think you have to put in a whole mast bearing and wire to service your horn. I've soldered a new wire to the insulated housing and fished it in there,if you have a wire don't let it get away either use it,or fish a fresh one in there . I think it will work so you can use the later wheel. Just cut a junk shaft from a 46 car to use to mount a 53 wheel on for restoration work on my trucks.

cmayna I think a 57 pickup looks just like that,should have a turn signal switch from a 57 that came to me. Also the c-1 corvetts were the same switch,have to look in my pile.

Nope. The 57 steering wheel was the first dished-type used in our old trucks. The piece the turn signal stalk screws into parallels the dish of the steering wheel. You need the mechanism from an earlier truck.

Fibonachu The wheel does have the slip ring circuit and insulated button in it that might help pretzer ,can't remember how the later ones cancel but think one might get a neat job using the later turn signal system.