Hi, I just tried installing a new Wood Grain steering wheel in my Fairlane and ran into a couple of issues. The first is the steering wheel seems to go too far onto the steering column that it is rubbing the collar?? I do have the spring in place. Second is once it is all together and I turn the wheel the horn starts honking, very entertaining to the wife! I did not see a spacer or bushing when I removed the original wood wheel but it sure seems like this is what it needs. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Phil
Haa haa, that was pretty funny. I bought one a couple of years ago for my '66 and just as you found, I had to remove the column collar (behind the steering wheel) and cut around a quarter inch off of it to get the wheel to fit. I tried to do a pretty careful job so it wouldn't look like Hell and it did turn out pretty good. You can't tell unless you REALLY scrutinize it. Of course there is quite a bit of work yet to be done to my interior so you'd never notice because of all the other shortcomings.
Now your horn thing has me wondering whether I may yet have that issue because my horn currently doesn't work. I haven't tried to find out why (yet). The good news is that to my delight the turn signal return works fine.
I love that wheel so it's definitely worth the minor hassles. It's a 500% improvement over the hum-drum original.
I also installed a woodgrain steering wheel on my 1966 Fairlane hardtop and had the same issue. I had to buy a thinner chrome spacer collar. I'm not sure, but there may be differences between the 1966 and 1967 woodgrain wheels. I know for a fact that there are two different spacer collars for the two years. You can buy them from many of the different Fairlane/Mustang suppliers. You may be able to compare yours with an image online to help sort the problem out. Mine still rubbed the column ever so slightly after I installed the thinner spacer collar. I just took a flat metal file and filled off about a millimeter. Did a nice, even job by constantly changing directions. I then painted the now bare metal surface and you can't tell it was modified. Good luck.
Regretfully the woodgrain wheels for Fairlanes are year-specific -- 66s for 66s, and 67s for 67s -- ONLY.
I had some guy at the All-Ford Nationals show and explain the differences to me a couple of years ago; I forgot the details but essentially he said the 66s and 67s are NOT interchangable.
The good news is that the wheels are interchangable between models, i.e. Galaxie, Mustang, Fairlanes all use the same woodgrain wheels for '66 and all Galaxies, Mustang and Fairlanes use the same woodgrain wheel for '67.
I'm planning of getting a repro '67 for my 500XL simply because the cost of rehabbing the old one is almost the same as the cost for a new repro.
I had a 66' woodgrain wheel and used it in a 68' cougar....I used a standard grant horn kit and had no problems, the wheel was in a 66' fairlane....just happened to be playing with a cougar at that time. I guess what I'm getting at is try a horn kit from your local speed shop...see if it works.
