How to: Replace Gen 1.5 Steering Wheel w/ Leathery Goodness

No Finally got a chance to replace my steering wheel. Got a killer deal on a brand new Xterra leather steering wheel on eBay. Original Stealership retail is close to $500. I checked. I got this for under $100. So yeah. As a side note, its FRIGGIN COLD today. So I'm bundled up.



Here's why I'm replacing my steering wheel....not just because I WANTED a leather wheel from the get go, but because this started happening to my crappy plastic one.



First, a safety note.
THE BATTERY MUST BE DISCONNECTED AT LEAST 10 MINUTES PRIOR TO DISASSEMBLY!!

The reason for this is so that you do not accidentally set off the air bag. Remember, the air bag is a balloon with a pyrotechnic charge behind it. For this reason, until the airbag is disconnected and safely set aside NEVER WORK DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF THE AIR BAG! If you mess that up, don't yell at me.

Tools:
Socket Wrench
10mm socket (Duh....everything on this truck is a 10mm)
13mm socket
16mm socket
19mm socket
Phillips Head Screwdriver
SMALL Flathead Screwdriver
Steering wheel puller (Autozone, $20 refundable rental fee)

Time required: About an hour

Difficulty: REALLY easy

New Wheel:







I don't have the radio controls, so your disassembly may vary.

1) DISCONNECT BATTERY AND WAIT!



2) Pull the plug on the left hand side of the wheel. This reveals one of the 10mm airbag bolts.





3) Remove the cover over the cruise controls. Simply grab it top and bottom and pull. Not too hard, but it should pop right off.





4) Remove the two phillips head screws that hold the cruise control buttons and pull straight out to remove the buttons. This reveals the other 10mm bolts.





5) Remove both of the 10mm bolts that hold the airbag in place. Once removed, gently pull the airbag forward. It should pop right out.



You'll see the two airbag plugs on the back. They are color coded so that you can't get them confused.



6) Insert a small flathead screw driver into the back of the plug at the base of the black locking tab. GENTLY pry the black locking tab away from the colored connector.



This unlocks the plug and it should pull out easily from the back of the airbag.

Take the airbag away and put it somewhere safe. Don't drop it. Ever.



7) Pull the small phillips head screw that is holding the wiring harness for the cruise buttons and remove the horn wire by pushing the little tab on the front and disconnecting it.



8 ) Pull the steering wheel! heh. Remove the 19mm retaining nut.



This is easiest done by locking the steering wheel with the ignition all the way off. And while I used a regular socket wrench, an electric impact would probably be easier.

9) Once the nut is removed, set up the steering wheel puller by finding the two proper bolts and inserting them through the aluminum bracket with the supplied washers and screwing them into the provided holes in the base of the steering wheel. Tighten these up. 13mm socket. Place the small black rotation washer on the tip of the puller screw and snug it up to the steering shaft.





Put your 16mm socket wrench on the puller and give it a nice little quarter turn. It shouldn't take much force at all to break the wheel off the splines. Gently pull the wheel making sure that the wires from the clock spring don't get hung up.



Before we move on to the next step, I need to make a side note. This steering wheel has a cutout on the left for the radio controls. That I don't have. So I need to swap the plastic backing cover from my existing steering wheel. So I took both back into the nice warm house.

10) Remove the 4 small phillips head screws that hold the plastic on the back of the wheel. I also removed the the bracket that holds the cruise wires and the ENTIRE bracket for mounting and holding the radio controls. Because I don't need them.







11) time to reinstall. you'll notice that the steering shaft has a vertical slit that marks top center. Likewise, the wheel has a round dimple that marks its top center. Feed all the wires back into the wheel, and align the marks. Press it on to the splines.



12) Reinstall the 19MM nut and torque to 29 ft-lbs according the the FSM. I went a little tighter than that. This nut is what presses the wheel back on the splines and lock it in place.

13) Remount the phillips head screw for the cruise wires, and reconnect the horn wire.

14) Carefully reconnect the airbag wires, press the connector locks back in.

15) STAND TO THE SIDE and reinstall the two 10mm bolts. Little bit of fresh blue locktite. And torque to 110 ft-lbs.

16) Reinstall the cruise controls and two retaining screws.

17) Reinstall covers on both sides of the steering wheel.

18 ) PROFIT!



oh.....and don't forget to reconnect the battery. And make sure you don't have any ABS lights. And that the horn works.

Hehehehe I'd probably be the guy to deploy the airbag on myself.


Nice write up Jay!!!!!

Mine's getting pretty scarred up.....I think I'll add this to the list (it's a very long list....) if I can find that deal on Ebay.

Excellent write-up!!

Excellent write-up! Well done, clear and complete. Atta boy!

Thanks dudes!

I do have one small problem. The new leather wheel isn't as fat and chunky in my hands. I love the way the leather feels. But it doesn't feel as "Tonka Truck" as it used to.

Thanks for this. I had no idea it was that easy.

And, I'm with you; dealing with the loaded bomb that is the airbag is unnerving the first few times.

Great write up. Maybe if i werent to chicken to deal with an airbag, then i could make this one happen. mines getting pretty scarred up as well.

I've thought about replacing mine but with some kind of cool (yellow, of course) steering wheel. Mines getting pretty worn as well.

great write up, and glad to see that the air bag didnt go off lol.

caseycamby said:

I've thought about replacing mine but with some kind of cool (yellow, of course) steering wheel. Mines getting pretty worn as well.

Click to expand...

Not to threadjack such a great write-up but Ebay has those "sew-on" covers made by Circle Cool...... I have put them in both Solstices and they actually look great.... And they have yellow! Just watch the video before you sew it in (they actually stitch the stitching together).

Sorry about the thread jack Jay......

Great job Jay!

caseycamby said:

I've thought about replacing mine but with some kind of cool (yellow, of course) steering wheel. Mines getting pretty worn as well.

Click to expand...

You can always try a steering wheel cover. I don't generally like covers but this one seems good:

https://www.wheelskins.com/eurotone_wheelskin.php?wheel=et_lg4

and you can get it in a nice bright yellow.

Excellent write up. Care to share the link to the seller on ebay? Also, I have a couple questions. 1, where did you get those switches, and 2 which shift knob is that? See below:

Switches are from www.OTRATTW.com He'll have to answer the shifter.

shumanchu said:

Excellent write up. Care to share the link to the seller on ebay? Also, I have a couple questions. 1, where did you get those switches, and 2 which shift knob is that? See below:

Click to expand...

Tried to find an eBay link. No dice. Hmm.

Correct on the switches.

The shift knob is kind of interesting. I want to say mid 2000s Mitsubishi, Mazda Miata, or Subaru? I used to go through junk yards and "remove" cool looking shift knobs off of cars. Years later, after I bought the truck I found it in the garage in a bin full of them. Just so happened that it had the right pattern and threads.

I wanna do this! Mine was disentagrating in my hands today haha. I checked eBay and the cheapest I found was 200 bucks. How did you find it under 100??

Nice write up,I'm going to keep my eyes open for a new wheel.

Any chance a wheel from a 2nd gen Xterra would fit on the 1st gen?

It might fit in terms of spline count and steering shaft size but there's no guarantee that the wiring will line up, the airbag will work, etc.

I looked into replacing the wheel with one from a different Nissan. Actually have a leather Sentra SE-R wheel hanging in my garage. While it would have worked mechanically, the wiring for everything was so different it wouldn't have been worth it.

Ehh, guess I won't take a chance on that one. Really want to replace my steering wheel. Got a cheesy cover on it that I hate, but it's better than the flaking off plastic.

You are probably gonna hate me for asking this, but any way the images could be resurrected? Thanks. Im looking on ebay at the leather steering wheel. It says its for the year 2001 Xterra. Would that work on an 02 Xterra? Here is the link, http://www.ebay.com/itm/Nissan-4843...ash=item4ae8b14b5a:g:EyEAAOxygPtSvD2M&vxp=mtr

I didn't know that this thread had bad images too. I know I've got these. And yeah, that wheel should work great. Gimme a chance to get the pictures fixed.

Great! Thanks. Yeah, I hate it when computers decide to turn their backs on us and break our images, files, and anything of value to us!

It's not computers. It's imageshack. They used to be free and when they stopped being free they held all my pictures for ransom. And when I told them to get ufcked they deleted them all.

Hmmm....sketchy photo web link stuff. Why not just post photos directly to this site instead of using photobucket. Plus Photobucket is soooooo slow on my macbook pro that has the biggest processor (Turbo boosted 4.0ghz quad core).