[Gator67]

I’m the one who bought the Keith K’s 68 Firebird 400 convertible. It was listed in the “For Sale” section back in March. I posted a recent photo below in case you missed it.

I was looking for a classic Pontiac that my wife would feel comfortable driving—something smaller and easier to manage than my GTO, a restored HO 4-speed car. I showed my wife the photos Keith posted, and she fell in love with it. I thought it would work well for us, and it has. The car is a great driver--reliable, rust free, highly optioned, complete, and original looking. It’s been great to see my wife jump in “her” Pontiac with her friends to go out somewhere. I like driving it too (more so that I thought I would being a GTO guy)!

In any case, I thought I’d start a thread. Although it’s in nice shape, there are many projects that I’ll be tackling myself or farming out to folks with knowledge, skills, and abilities that I lack. The car is very original with 70k miles, so my hope is that the photos I post will be helpful.

First project: Replace the cracked deluxe steering wheel.

As the photo below shows, it’s cracked all the way around the hub. This is unfortunate because the wheel is perfect otherwise, and I love how it looks and feels. My first inclination was to repair it, but I’m skeptical that a repair will last--especially given that the car will spend time in the blistering sun here (it got up to 115 today). Also, the PHS indicates that the car came with a custom wood wheel. That’s what I decided to go with.

I picked up a correct 68 wood wheel from a forum member, cleaned up the spokes, and shipped it off to our host for remolding/refinishing. See photo. Hopefully it will be back in a few weeks. I purchased the collar and horn pieces from our host. The brushed finish on the plastic collar looks funky—I’ll look for an original piece to use.

All this leads me to the following question. Why was this Deluxe wheel on the car in the first place? I recall reading that there was a problem with the wood wheels when they were first introduced and they were replaced under warranty. This could have happened to my car since it’s a fairly early build (October 67). This also leads me to wonder whether GM/dealers substituted Deluxe wheels for wood wheels or whether this was the owner’s choice? Anyone recall how this went?