Hello all
I just bought a S4 GT from a guy who put lots of money into it and had to
sell due to a growing family. The engine is out but I will put it in this
week. My friend Jim E came to the house to see the Alpine and while he was
looking at it he moved the steering wheel to check for tightness. There was
a little bit of slop to it so we took a look at the linkage. All seemed OK
there so we looked closer at the steering wheel. It is an aftermarket wood
rim wheel. I pried off the horn button and saw that the nut holding the
wheel to the steering column was finger tight. I took the nut off and the
wheel came right off. To my amazement, I saw that the splines on steering
wheel were smaller in diameter than the splines on the steering column-there
is no way that wheel would fit on an Alpine steering column! Instead,
someone forced the wheel on the column and tightened it up so that perhaps
1/8 inch of the steering column splines cut into the aluminum taper on the
steering wheel. The previous owner called me today and I asked him if he
had installed that wheel on his car. He told me that it was on the car when
he had bought it. He said he only drove the Alpine a total of 300 miles
since he got it. Then he got really quiet on the phone.....
I guess my point is that these are old cars. They have changed hands many
times over the years. Some guys know how to work on them, some don't. Look
over everything that you can before assuming that a new purchase is safe to
drive! I know that I learned a lesson. Anyone need a wood steering wheel!?
Eric
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