How To Modify an N15 Nissan Pulsar Steering Wheel To Fit A GQ Patrol

[BigMav]

Ok so I have heard of plenty of people fitting N14 and earlier steering wheels to their Patrol and I had heard that fitting a later model Pulsar wheel was possible but nobody had explained what might be involved in making one fit. For ages I have been looking for a mint condition stock standard Patrol wheel, I have seen a few but they always are selling for over $100 which is too much for a twenty year old steering wheel in my opinion. So I found this N15 wheel in the wrecker when scouring for some other parts and thought bugger it I'll give this a go. So here is what I started with.



Unscrew the small screw underneath and pull the horn fascia off, then 4 more screws will remove the rear cover and you end up with three bits.



This pic shows the rear cover and how I have removed the centre hub part, I did this with a vibrating renovator tool but a dremel should be able to do it aswell.



This is the tool I used although you could probably use a dremel or something just as well.

[BigMav]

Now for the fun bit, I used this:



and started attacking the centre hub thingy so that it looks something like this. The whole reason for doing this is because the spline doesn't mesh with the steering wheel spline, so you need to recess this piece further back into the wheel. The pictures should help to explain a bit.





The modified piece back into the rear cover bit.



Another shot of it sitting back in the housing you can now see how much lower the profile is sticking out.

[BigMav]

Time to put it back together with some of this stuff.





I got a bit carried away with removing stuff and went too far causing the horn contact to no longer touch the contact on the wheel so I extended it a bit with the end of a pop rivet. LOL. yeah a bit dodge but seems to work fine.

[BigMav]

Final product looks better in the flesh, the pic was taken at night and the flash picks up every little mark. Notice my next project in the background on top of the dash.

[davo94]

Nice work.

[BigMav]

Cheers yeah pretty happy with the result actually, the wheel feels like it should be there from factory. The indicator and wiper stalks are a little bit further away but not too bad. It had a sports wheel on there before which blocked the speedo completely. I can easily see the gauges now but it is still a bit smaller than a factory GQ wheel. It did take a couple of hours on the dremel grinding and test fitting but I think it was worth the effort to get a modern looking steering wheel.

[Clunk]

Nice work there BigMav .................... you wouldn't by any chance be putting up some dimensions and instructions for that dash pod would ya?????

[BigMav]

I forgot one pretty important bit with the wheel. The indicator cancel function doesn't work anymore, I know whats wrong just need to figure out how to fix it. Pics to follow when its done.

[BigMav]

Nice work there BigMav .................... you wouldn't by any chance be putting up some dimensions and instructions for that dash pod would ya?????

I wasn't really planning on getting dimensions mate to be honest its pretty straightforward. I used 6mm ply, a small sheet at bunnings was about 10 bucks. Some cardboard and a stanley knife to get the template for the side bits and thats about it really. I'll see how I go when I finally get to finish it off. I'll at least take some more pics.

[Clunk]

I wasn't really planning on getting dimensions mate to be honest its pretty straightforward. I used 6mm ply, a small sheet at bunnings was about 10 bucks. Some cardboard and a stanley knife to get the template for the side bits and thats about it really. I'll see how I go when I finally get to finish it off. I'll at least take some more pics.

Not straight forward for a numpty like me!!!!! Lol. But seriously don't worry about it, was just curious is all...... One thing I would ask though, is how will it be mounted to the dash?