Older wheel, newer column

[Jimal]

When I bought my '65 K10, it was a bodge of parts from different generations, including a steering column from (what I assume based on the accompanying wiring diagrams and bed parts) a 1975 C/K10. The column was modified by the previous owner to eliminate the key and column lock, which is fine with me, but it also came with a stock '70s vintage steering wheel that was poorly painted with the '90's tan that covers the rest of the interior.



So when the opportunity came to pick up a parts stash from a '63 C10 project, I grabbed everything I could, including an original steering column with a standard wheel and horn cap. And after reading several threads about how to make the vintage wheel work with a newer column, last weekend I took my crack at it.

If you look closely at the top image, you'll see the horn wire sticking out of the wheel. That wire had a quarter turn connector that goes into a shaft that sticks out of the column and then connects to the plastic horn button that is fastened to the wheel.



This is different from the '63 horn circuit, which uses a plastic piece with a spring-loaded copper contact that contacts the horn circuit in the column and is contacted by a sort of Belleville like washer that works as the horn spring. Thanks to lucky happenstance (or good planning by the P.O.) these two conflicting systems just happen to line up correctly so that when '63 steering wheel is on the column splines and centered, the column end of the horn connector fits into the hole in the steering wheel.

All is not perfect however, as there are a couple of interference points. First, the two horn circuit connectors take up the same space in that hole and by themselves are not compatible. The bigger issue I found though was that when bolted in completely, the steering wheel bound to the steering column so that you couldn't turn it.



The solution to the steering wheel binding was a simple two step process that in hindsight probably only needs to be a single step. There are probably other ways I could have done this, since I'm not using the steering wheel lock function, but this is what I did. First thing was remove to the plastic cover from the end of the steering column. This gave me a bit of space and exposed the steering wheel lock ring, but in the end I don't think it was necessary and I might put it back to protect the guts of the column. The second, more important step was to break out the D.A. and sand the ridge you see in the picture above down until it was flush with the center hole in the steering wheel. This allowed the steering wheel to fully seat without binding.

For the horn circuit, after considering a couple options I decided that shortening the connector from the steering wheel was the better plan. After taking a couple measurements, I broke out my utility knife and started cutting the soft plastic.



When I got done, I cut off most of the connector, and ended up with spring and contacts as separate pieces.



After dropping the larger, bottom contact into the hole in the steering wheel and making sure it was seated, I dropped in the spring (which could have been cut down, but I didn't bother, the top contact, and finally the shortened piece, which I held in with drop of super glue to keep the spring from shooting it across the cab again. Reinstalled the horn mechanism and the horn cap and voila! Working horn*



The steering wheel has a nice patina to it, and it doesn't match the steering column or the rest of the cab, but I'll worry about those things another day.

* After I replaced the horn relay that is.