Ferrero 2 spoke steering wheels

i have this one, which i doesn't need...

@mux. I would buy yours.  9729983066

FWIW, I suspect there's a reason two-spoke steering wheels are rare today: Liability Claims!  Mid '50s to '60s, some upscale models had wood covered rims with 2 perforated spokes & were popular- Corvettes for instance. But 'upper-size-percentile" drivers tend to grab the steering wheel in a death grip and use it as a grab-handle to haul themselves in or out of such usually-low-roof cars.

Ferraro and MOMO wheels are -I think- heat treated 2024 aircraft aluminum (non-TIG-weldable- I tried) with wood or plastic rim covers under leather wraps.  With only two spokes, the rim flexes quite a bit if used as a grab or assist-handle. Over time, something cracks. Two-spoke and banjo wheels are not illegal in the US, but If you drive 'vigorously', I would not recommend any 2-spoke wheel.  Do not even start with Citroen's one spoke steering wheel.....

Hi Larry,

I have such a steering wheel, and like to get some helpfull hints to adapt on the Capri splined shafts.

thanks

Simon

The Ferrero wheel that I have is definitely not aluminum, highly magnetic steel.

Larry

@bosswrench posted:

FWIW, I suspect there's a reason two-spoke steering wheels are rare today: Liability Claims!  Mid '50s to '60s, some upscale models had wood covered rims with 2 perforated spokes & were popular- Corvettes for instance. But 'upper-size-percentile" drivers tend to grab the steering wheel in a death grip and use it as a grab-handle to haul themselves in or out of such usually-low-roof cars.

Ferraro and MOMO wheels are -I think- heat treated 2024 aircraft aluminum (non-TIG-weldable- I tried) with wood or plastic rim covers under leather wraps.  With only two spokes, the rim flexes quite a bit if used as a grab or assist-handle. Over time, something cracks. Two-spoke and banjo wheels are not illegal in the US, but If you drive 'vigorously', I would not recommend any 2-spoke wheel.  Do not even start with Citroen's one spoke steering wheel.....

The 67 Shelbys used a three spoke FIFA made wheel. Many had such issues bending the wheel.

If the car wouldn't start and in pushing the car you pushed on the wheel, you just bent it up.

As for entering and exiting in a Pantera I'd offer 2 to 1 odds that it won't last a year without getting bent.

A quick release hub might be a really good way of preserving it if you use it getting in and out.

Good idea the quick release. The missing wheel stored in the trunk or under a seat might be a theft deterrent as well, at least to stupid thieves. Panteras don't steer easily with vice-grips.

And if you adapt the grant security quick disconnect, which actually uses a key, as installed by Dennis Quella on 2511, you can install the antitheft cap which means even vice grips are totally worthless. 😁😁

Larry

I've got Wilkinson's quick release. Maybe you  could steer it with a pipe wrench?

With the Grant lock you could bring a 5 foot breaker bar if you wanted, but the red cover locks on with a key and completely covers the steering shaft. 😁😁

Larry

Here's a pic of a cracked two spoke Ferrero from a Pantera.  These are NOT aluminum steering wheels.

John

OK- thanks, John. Thats why I said- "I think...." when talking about cracked wheels, because I've never even SEEN an actual Ferrero wheel. The one I tried to repair decades ago was a vintage MOMO and that WAS aluminum, cracked halfway thru one spoke. I welded it OK, but apparently my friend was a slow learner; 2 months later, it cracked again- 1/4" away from the weld, probably from the same usage.

The crack shown above  in the Ferrero likely could be welded and refinished since the damaged area is quite far away from the very heat-sensitive leather wrapping. Also appears that there's some sort of brushed surface treatment that resists rust on the magnetic metal.

They are stainless steel and most of those alloys are brittle to an extent.

Those cracks are not unique to even 3 spoke wheels. I would think you are looking at THE main reason they were discontinued?

The Ferrero wheel sitting in my garage is either steel, or the most magnetic stainless steel I have ever come across in my 72 years. Just saying.

Larry

There are magnetic alloys of steel. I can't tell you the alloy number but I have had some here.

There are three main families of stainless steel, ferritic, matensitic and austenitic steels.
Austenitic steels, like 304 or 316 for example, are not magnetic, but ferritic and matensitic stainless steels are magnetic.

I learned this at school 50 years ago.

@rene4406 posted:

There are three main families of stainless steel, ferritic, matensitic and austenitic steels.
Austenitic steels, like 304 or 316 for example, are not magnetic, but ferritic and matensitic stainless steels are magnetic.

I learned this at school 50 years ago.

You would not be taught that here in the US unless you were an advanced student in a Technical School.

Even then it might be in a text somewhere but likely would never be brought up unless you were at something like MIT in advanced metallurgy?

Certainly not in a high school here.

Nakita Kruschev once called the US "decedent". In some ways he was and still is correct?

I will say this though, when you bring scrap metal to the "junkie" here (the junkyard, not a drug addict), they will use a magnet on the scrap.

If it is magnetic, they pay you for steel which is $100 per ton in scrap.

Non-magnetic stainless is around what aluminum is/was (haven't junked anything recently) at $.23 a pound.

Most here just know of the "consumer grades of stainless" like for bolts for your boat?

The original intent of that steering wheel was no doubt a rebellious cutting edge design but it never lasted long enough to get the bugs out like cracking and strengthening it from bending.

I'd give Tjarda an A for effort on it though. He was a designer, not a development engineer and took some design risks here and there.

I would love to have talked to him before he passed. He and I have similar backgrounds.

Larry gets it! Both the esthetics and the function. It is a beautiful and somewhat unique wheel.

When I said at school, I meant the school of engineers in which I studied.

Here in France there are few engineers from universities, there is another course, called the "Grandes Ecoles" (which don't correspond at all to what you call high school, we call "lycées" this that you call high school) which we access by very selective competitions which have success rates of 10 % or less, after two years of "preparatory classes", where we do a lot of mathematics and physics, themselves reserved for the best pupils from high schools (lycées).

The best of these "Grandes Ecoles" are on the same level as your MIT.

To come back to stainless steels, it is true that austenitic steels are the most common and the others quite rare, hence the widely held idea, but not completely accurate, that stainless steels are non-magnetic.

Stainless is best in the cosmetic grades that shows no oxidation. The magnetic ones seem to show some if a heavy grit is used to "polish" them, i.e., "brushed stainless".

Technically they shouldn't oxidize and perhaps what is seen is transference of the polishing material to the stainless? I'm not sure.

The worst alloy here cosmetically that I have seen is the 409 on the exhaust systems which develops a very brown oxidized surface layer.

The bolts are terrible in that the cut threads chafe and will jamb the connection and strip out the threads when you try to unfasten them.

Not all of them, just enough to ruin your day. They really are the opposite of "air craft" alloys that are designed to bend rather then fracture.

Don't even go there with schools like MIT. You will start up the entire "conspiracy of the academics" discussion which gets ugly really fast.

ALL of those elite schools have a "legacy list" on the order of 1/3 of the applicants (think Kennedy and Harvard) AND as made apparent in some of the recent "news" they are very "bribable" on admissions for various reasons.

That leaves the vast majority of applicants with literally 1600 SAT's and 104+ high school averages vying for the available admission spots.

It's a pretty ugly scenario and not going to get better anytime soon. Too much BIG money involved. Just as bad as "Big Pharma".

I do not know the American system but in France there are no places reserved in the "Grandes Ecoles" of Engineers or business schools. I am only the son of a very small salesman of bicycles, I always attended only public schools and thus free and I had friends of promotion whose parents belonged to all social classes, farmers, workers, employees, teachers, traders, engineers and entrepreneurs.

It is true that it was 50 years ago and that since the level of free public schools, primary and high school, has fallen a lot. Now the good schools are private and paying which creates a selection by the parents' money, but the entrance competitions are still open to all with no places reserved for anyone.

This has been going on in the US on Admissions for seemingly forever?

It's just recently that anyone got caught and made the national news cycles.

A sizeable donation to the school of your choice is legal and likely would have changed the admissions consideration? Think the former President of the US.

Unbeknownst to me also was an entire black market on buying A term papers and hiring someone to take the SAT's for you. Not that I would have actually taken that route but the dirt that has surfaced in the past decades IS upsetting.

The motto being I suppose, "cash talks, nobody walks"?

So what do you think the alloy of the Ferro's is?

I'm thinking that it just needed to be cut out of a thicker plate stock to fix the cracking?

Countersinking the mounting bolts is what accelerated the cracking. Surface mounted button head screws would have looked good and helped there quite a bit.

You also need to compensate for having one less spokes. Thicker would HAVE (past tense) helped as well.