Steering wheel construction question..

[jocko]

What's THIS metal ring that's embedded on the inside of the steering wheel inner opening there for? Doesn't seem to be big or thick enough to really add any strength (it's removed in a different wheel not pictured, pretty flimsy, it's about 1/16" thick). It has nothing to do with the horn working. Anyone know why it's there? My only guess is it's where the horn contact ring/cup thingy (sorry, can't think of the name..) would possibly rub against the inside of the wheel if one really whanged on the horn button. Like for a year. But it just doesn't seem necessary.

[Gromit]

I know GM used vapor smoothing cabinet where they mounted the steering wheels after molding and the cabinets used a solvent vapor to remove the mold flashing. This saved them a lot of labor from the old method of hand finishing each one.

So I don't know about the ring but it could be something for either the original mold release or the later processing.

The wheel itself is made of an interesting plastic - not all that common but I can't recall the name but it is in the attached patent description.

Unfortunately as you are well aware that plastic doesn't like a lot of sun even filtered though a windshield... or maybe it was the heat and different coefficient of expansion of the plastic compared to the steel core.

[Gromit]

Oops I attached the wrong file - this is the one I meant..