Well, on to the most important item in the interior, the steering wheel. I never really cared for the plain stock wheel but didn't like most of the aftermarket wheels either. When I had visited Phil (Herblenny) on numerous occasions, I saw the display of all the steering wheels he had collected over the years and there was one that really caught my eye, an Efini wheel. I quickly dismissed the thought of getting one when he told me how much he had paid for it
. I'm not a cheap bastard by any means, but there are things that I will put off until "the price is right". Fast forward about 2 year... while checking eBay, I came across the very wheel I would want as a replacement for the bland OEM one. From looking at the pics and the description given, it seemed to be in excellent condition. It was local, meaning no over-seas shipping cost, and the deal maker... it was only $78 shipped. I jumper on that deal and took receipt of my new replacement steering wheel.
According to everyone I had talked to and all the info I had read, this new steering wheel should be a direct bolt-on. After receiving it, I found that was not the case. First obvious thing was the new wheel had no airbag. In order to use it, I had to deal with this issue, so I painstakingly removed the airbag connectors, crash sensors and all related items. Next was the actual mounting of the wheel which was impossible to do and still retain the stock clock spring for the horn (and airbag if it was to be used), so here is where the major modification came into play. There was a write-up on a botched modification on another message board but I knew there was a better way to do it, so after removing the clockspring and looking at the wheel, I figured how I would go about it. After reading through the wiring schematics in the FSM, I took the steering wheel and clockspring apart.