Steering Wheel Color

[cplne]

Steering wheel on the 53 Manhattan needs a lot of work.  Was the original color an off white almost yellow?  Bakalite or plastic?

Thanks

Mark

[joefrazer]

On the 53 Manhattans, the steering wheel was referred to as 'pearlite'. It's sort of a translucent off white leaning towards yellow. The lower line cars used a painted hard rubber wheel.

[cplne]

Thanks Joe.  I'm on it!

[kaiserfrazerlibrary]

The material is Tenite plastic.

[stroker70]

Do NOS tenite wheels show up for sale at all? I want to upgrade my partially crumbling wheel and I have found no one that has molds to recast an original. Recasting is as much as $900.00 a wheel when they have a mold for a similar type wheel. Yikes!

[kaiserfrazerlibrary]

The big part of the price here is to create a mold that would produce a wheel with the detail characteristics of the original.  This is the big nut to crack in doing any pot metal or plastic part for any older car.  Don't bother to go to China; the decent companies there are already booked up with more work than they can handle.

[ben-tex]

The manufacturing fund has the mold or whatever you call it for the steering wheels for 51-53 Kaisers. There was a run of wheels done some years ago and it took forever to sell them for what I think was around  $160--I bought 2 based on my contribution of 2 old wheels to be stripped to get to metal frames that are required for the new wheel. Couple years ago I sold both of them as I never got around to using them on my own cars. On a lot of projects there are lots of members clamoring for a certain item and once it becomes available the attitude seems to be "well it will be there when I need it so I will wait to buy it". A lot of people were upset when all the wheels were finally sold.

[stroker70]

I've read that those repop wheels were a painted rubber type and that is not what I want (the tenite type) 

[joefrazer]

The club repop wheels were not a painted unit but were also not exact match to the original tenite wheel. As I understand it, no one was able to mix a formula that was a match to the original material and keep the cost reasonable. The reproduction wheels look great, are a very close match and sold quickly...I don't think that the manufacturing fund has any left. I have one for my 53K.

[ben-tex]

"Joe" is correct. I don't know where the bad information about the wheels being rubber got circulated but it is INCORRECT. I doubt if anyone could tell the repops were not 100 per cent original--who has seen a brand new, never exposed to sun etc original? And I never heard of anyone getting points off for the wheels in judging.

[HJ-ETEX]

The repro wheels were an off white plastic. Pearlite/Tenlite wheels are beautiful when new but quickly yellow. Then they crack and eventually turn to dust. A metaphor for life. The wheels used on Deluxe (or Special depending on the year) were painted rubber and that is fine with me.

[mbflemingkf]

Anyone know what the "Manufacturing Fund" is working on these days?

[AZ_HJ]

Mike,

I would like to know as well.


Mark

[pnw_oldmags]

Has anyone ever successfully patched the cracks in a Manhattan Steering wheel?  Seems it would be very difficult to mix up a plastic that would look good in the Tenite.

[joefrazer]

I work closely with the manufacturing fund manager and at the moment, we're having more 51-5K floor mats done. They will be in black only due to the rapidly rising cost of doing colors. They should be ready soon.

The 51F tail light lens project has been back burnered for now. It's not a dead issue, but isn't first on the priority list either. The problem is, the mold cost amortized over a relatively small run is making the lens cost artificially high. Right now, that number is well over $150 per lens and is just too hard to swalllow...

We're also going to have 51F grille medallions done.