Sometimes God says "let's give this guy a break."
I had planned on installing a 68-72 15 inch reproduction GM truck steering wheel, but I hadn't quite figured out how to do it for sure. One plan was to buy the wheel and the
Forever Sharp 3 Bolt Adapter For Club Car DS then set about drilling and tapping to bolt it up.
What slowed me down from pulling the trigger too quickly was the price. I've spent more on this project in 5 weeks than I spent in 5 years on my Model T, and that includes installing hydraulic disc brakes on the T!
Shopping around I found a gently used reproduction 64-67 GM A body (Chevelle, Tempest, El Camino, Cutlass, Skylark) steering wheel nearby for about half the cost of the truck wheels I was looking at. Close enough.
I picked up the wheel yesterday and pulled the old wheel off my cart to dry fit the new wheel and just get a feel for what I was going to have to do to mount it. The Club Car has a larger spline than the GM wheel, which I thought was odd but okay.
BUT the threaded end of the shaft protruded through the center spline of the new wheel, and the back of the new wheel spline hole butted up against the shoulder just above the splines and below the threads of the steering column. It couldn't be this simple, could it?
Almost. But in this case "almost" is close enough. I carefully installed the wheel nut and torqued it down. Then I took a test drive , bringing the old steering wheel and my socket and ratchet with me just in case.
It performed flawlessly. Satisfied that this was going to work (for awhile anyway) I set the steering so that wheels are straight, removed the wheel nut, applied some blue thread locker, and then torqued it down VERY hard; if it was going to fail I wanted it to fail now. It didn't.
So here we are, a rare instance of something working the easy way! All that having been said, because this thing only turns by friction (the nut against the front of the wheel and the back of the wheel against the shoulder of the column above the splines) it's not an ideal situation.
I certainly would never do this with a car, and you have to assess the risks for yourself if you want to do this with your cart; I don't go blazing around curves or driving at high speeds so I'm okay with it. We'll see what happens, your mileage may vary.
For perspective, the wheel is 16 and 3/8 inches outside diameter but is not obtrusive to getting into or out of the cart, even for the portly gentleman. I am 5'10" and close to 300lb's and it's fine.
It does interfere with fully opening the seat, but you can open it enough to just poke you head in, but if you want to do anything in there you'll have to take the seat out entirely, which is what I do anyway.
