Club 80-90 Forums

vw t25 1988 caravelle 1.9td aaz. hi all the foam on my steering wheel was no longer stuck to the metal, as a result it used to move about a bit, which i found annoying.
so at van fest i bit the bullet and purchased a smaller after market steering wheel and a adapter boss for it. unfortunetly i didnt have a socket big enough to fit it at the show, so waited till the weekend after where i fitted it whilst at my parents house (my dad had a bigger socket set). after fitting it and throwing my old steering wheel away, i drove it home. but the steering wheel is flat not concave and my fingers kept knocking the windscreen wipers and indicators. i just cant manage to squeeze them under the wheel with out hitting the wiper and indicator arms. my question is this should the steering wheel be concave, or have i been sold the wrong boss for my van. the splines fit ok and it's such a tight fit i had to use a 3 pronged gear puller to force it back off. i'm a bit dubious about ordering another boss if i'm going to have the same problem. also looking online the steering bosses seem to say they'll fit up to...... and then there's totally different years for them how can some fit up to 92 and others 94 etc. what years did they change splines and depth.
Anyone else had this problem? or can anyone recomend a boss that they'e fitted and works properly.
cheers

Also after fitting my boss and wheel, i noticed that the indicator arm was a lot stiffer than before, so 2 days later i thought i wonder whats causing that. I looked at it pondering for a while then moved the arm, hmmm definetley feels stiffer, then noticed smoke coming from under the steering cowling, tried switching the indicators off, then to the other side, turned off ignition and still smoke. Panicking now about my pride and joy going up in smoke, i started waving my arms about. "pooh" I NEED TO DISCONNECT BATTERY, before realising i might not have time to get toolbox unbolt seat and disconnect battery, so i dived in ripped out the glove box and yanked out all the fuses. I didn't mention any of this in the first part of my post as i presumed it was because i had fitted an incorrect boss, but after looking at another site about steering bosses i found out that this is a bit of a common problem. After taking off my boss i realised that the indicator canceling pin in the boss was touching a brass connection under the inidicator cancel bit that pops out. i was lucky enough to pull out the fuses before it got too bad, and had only melted one wire from the ignition to the indicator arm, but some other people have not been so lucky and have had to strip out and replace wires going right back to the fuse box. The wire gets so hot it also melts other wires in contact with it, so could be a bit of a nightmare. Just thought i'd give everyone a warning about this as you do not need this happening to you. and don't think because you've had yours working fine for a while now it wont happen to you as i've seen a thread where someones pin just slipped down just enough over the year to burn out his wires and have to get towed home

hey hairyuk,

i've got a boss that fit my '90 panel van. I too fitted it with an aftermarket wheel but couldn't get on with it 'cos the wheel i had was too small. I have seen that people have had the same electrical problem as you, all i had with this boss was that the indicator cancelling pin wasn't deep enough so it didn't work. the boss i have is for sale on ebay but is really for a Mk1 golf (& early mk2's), i can send you the link if you want but i reckon you'd be safer getting another caravelle wheel like i did as they are factory fit and give no problems! otherwise you can have my old (sticky) panel van wheel