Winter in the north is a great time for low priority projects that don’t get attention during our summer driving season. While waiting for my super charger kit to arrive I started a new project. My MGB, that had been in a barn for many years, had a rusted steering wheel. I kept putting off cleaning it up until this week. I’ve read a number of posts about doing this but doing it and reading about it are two different things. There was a lot of discussion on what the metal is… steel/chrome, stainless steel, aluminum or an aluminum alloy. It appears to me that it’s the last, a cast aluminum alloy frame. Please correct me if I’m wrong, just guessing.
I attacked the project with multiple grades of wet sandpaper, 320 – 400. I started with the back side as a safety factor. If I screwed that up it wouldn’t be as noticed as the front side and it was the worst of the two. The 320 did a nice job of removing the pitted rust and some of the pits. The 400 git did smooth out the sanding marks and gave the finish a semi flat finish. I also experimented with going further to 600 and then 000 steel wool. That gave the finish a polished look but continued to show the pitting in the surface. I backed off at the 400 git.
Front was almost as bad.
Granted it’s not like new. I believe that may not be possible, because it’s a cast piece that contained bubbles as it cooled. I realized I was exposing more of those pits as I sanded deeper into the surface. I’ll live with this outcome or think about sourcing a better looking wheel after a summer of driving.