I have been after one of these for ages and they seem to go for a quite a lot of money. There's one on eBay at the min - item number 261212746389

Seems cheap so may be what someone's after.

Obvious question, why don't I buy it ... I was about to yesterday but had a look on google and found a few links to owners who have used a ' vinyl penetrating spray ' and sprayed the grey inner section on the blobeye wheel black. It looks cracking and the tin of paint is £10 from halfords, so I'm going to be cheap and give that a go.

May be a good buy for someone / may help someone doing it my way on the cheap , ill post some pics if I succeed :-)

Chris

 

Post some pics anyway so we know what to expect if it goes wrong as well

I like the later style wheel also, but as you said they can be expensive and I can think of other things I would rather spend or put the money towards, hope it turns out well

 

Take off airbag mask over badge. Tin of normal black spray paint for a fiver.
Job done.

 

Cheers TT i shall be giving that a go then

 

Or buy shoe dye...that works perfectly on vinyl.

 

That looks great, definately be doing it this weekend. Is there much to getting the airbag off?

And would shoe dye work on the wheel ?

 

two bolts either side of the bag, star drive I think.
then pull forwards and disconnect the airbag multi plug.
obviously disconnect the battery first.

personally I would use spray paint for plastic. I used gloss black and its been fine.

 

Sounds straight forward , thanks.

 

Shoe dye does work. I first used it years ago when I turned the light blue doorcards in my MkI Escort black. It will dye vinyl or leather and is easily applied, it comes with a sponge applicator.

 

If I gave that a go ( save removing airbag ) and it doesn't look right , could I then spray over it, or remove it ?

 

Going to give this a go this weekend to try to get rid of that god awful grey centre to the wheel. Buying a tin of "Flexible Vinyl Paint" from Halfords today. - http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/s...egoryId_165495

 

I've still not attempted it. Post some pics when you're done it might make me get a move on ..

 

Ok, I grabbed the paint this morning. Just got back, undid the two torx bolts, undid the horn connector but got unhinged at trying to remove the airbag connector from either the boss end or the airbag end.

The connector at the boss end has no obvious way to remove it, to my tired eyes at least. Had a go at the airbag end but decided that was a bad idea. Also, any tips about masking off the sti bag, existing black section potentially

Thanks.

 

Ignore me, I was concentrating more on the end at the boss, gently but firmly with a flathead pulls out the centre yellow tab from the core of the airbag and the plug comes out.

Just as a reminder guys, you should have disconnected the battery first, left it for a few minutes, turned the ignition on/off to try to make sure any residual charge is gone before doing this.

Unlikely there would be a problem anyway but -

 

Ok, the story so far:

Left attachment shows how the steering wheel originally looked, yuck!

Middle picture shows the airbag tab that has to be removed in order to easily to free it from the car. Had an idea that it was a tab that popped up but took a little while to pluck up the courage to attack it due to what it was and that I was a couple of feet away from it. A small flathead screwdriver applied to either of the two marked ends and job done!

Right picture is the story so far. After masking off all the inside back bits and carefully masking off the logo with a razor blade, I put 5 coats on if memory serves, curing now for 24 hours before I remove the masking tape and hope that it hasn't all gone horribly wrong

 

same as what I did apart for I masked of the outer round circle before the badge as that was already black.

 

I considered that but I thought to hell with it, I have the skills to do it that way and go for the most uniform colour throughout hopefully. My only concern is over the quality of the lacquer around the edges of the logo with the masking tape on it, I shall soon find out.....

 

I didn't bother with lacquer just two coats of satin black, been fine for 2 years so far.

 

Nono, I was referring to the lacquer over the STI logo and I was correct. Was stuck on the phone so decided to remove the masking tape and in a couple of places around the edge of the logo, as in where it is folded in to the rest of the steering wheel along the silver edging, the lacquer has cracked off. Only talking about minute areas but enough to annoy me.

Will most likely try to touch up the lacquer with a teeny paintbrush but vee shall see...

 

Ok, pics of before and after attached: