In episode #2 of Izso's Mythbusters, I'm going to explore the horror stories of the "Aftermarket steering wheel terror" where the bosskit or steering wheel itself breaks off!
It's not common to hear about these sort of breakages but they do happen and I was curious. And it was cheap. What's even more scary is a lot of people actually do this : buy a aftermarket bosskit, get him/herself an aftermarket steering wheel and install it. Ever so occasionally you hear the horror story of someone's steering wheel breaking off for no apparent reason.
So this article is going to be a 2-in-1. DIY install bosskit and steering and a mythbuster!
What everyone these days do is buy a cheap steering wheel (or half cut one) off your friendly local auction site or off a friend and that's exactly what I did for RM150. The HKB brand steering adaptor or bosskit is brand new off the shelf for RM25. All I needed was my trusty tool box and I got to work.
In MightCarMods, they recommended to jack up the car to do this install. It's not really necessary la. What I did was drive straight and let the car settle the steering straight and I left it in that position.
First up, remove the screw that locks the front face plate of your stock steering wheel. This particular install was for a Proton, I'm sure other car makes aren't too far off either.
At this point of time I turned the steering to the left to lock it in place (my car keys are out) and I gently removed the face plate.
Disconnect the horn plugs and remove the face plate. You'll need a socket-box-tool to remove the center nut. In my case it was a size 14 nut. Since the steering is locked in place now you should have leverage to remove the nut. Once removed, knock (relatively hard) the steering handle left-right a few times to loosen it's position and then just remove the whole steering.
Take not which teeth or which direction is pointing upwards.
Insert the boss kit in with the indicator facing upwards (if there's no indicator then it doesn't matter). Align the rear signal light deactivator properly. There are 3 notches, 2 big and one small. The small one should point downwards or upwards depending on your car make. Mine was pointing downwards. This is important to install properly otherwise the signal lever will not disengage automatically after turning the wheel.
Install the alan-key bolts into the bosskit to hold the steering wheel in place. Connect the horn socket and lock the center nut.
Slot in the horn and give it a beep to test it and you're done!
Now I was recently at Dato Sagor that had a very windy twisty circuit layout. That was about a week after I installed the steering and so far so good. Everything worked and no scary steering snaps.
That was until this week, which was the following week after Dato Sagor.
Out of the blue while driving casually down the street in the middle of a turn the boss kit broke off!
You can bet your living daylights I was shocked beyond belief to see it snap off like that! From the feel of the metal, it was made of pretty soft aluminium or tin. Crap quality bosskit cut my hand pretty badly too when I tried to yank the damn thing out. Ended up having the car towed back home which thankfully was about 1km away.
In conclusion : Yes, it is possible to break off unexpectedly. So if you use a HKB bosskit, don't get overzealous with it. Hairline cracks or whatever caused from the aggressive driving on the track might have caused the break.
If you're going to get an aftermarket steering wheel, get one that comes with its own steering adaptor preferably made of steel. Or pay for a good quality bosskit. You don't want to have your steering breaking off while taking a corner.
