My 1962 Mark II 3.8 has a Jaguar Herrington wood trimmed wheel. I understand that this was a factory option available at the time. My wheel is starting to delaminate and I want to remove it to have access to the back in order to restore it.

How do I safely remove the plastic center and attached horn ring without damaging or breaking it. I don’t see any hidden fasteners. I suspect it may just snap off, but if I am wrong I can easily destroy The rim. Thanks.

Windrush

jaguar 1957 OTS
jaguar 1862 Mark II
jaguar 2000 Vanden Plas
Buick 1930 Series 60 seven passenger sedan

 

Access is from behind the wheel & obvious. Remove the 4 attachment screws for the plastic horncover. Dismantle the horn ring. Then you have a choice of separating the wheel from it's boss (ring of setscrews & nuts) or removing the centre nut from the column & removing the wheel boss & all. Remember to unplug the green horn wire. Derrington wheels use a different boss to the rest of the range.

I will post a picture of the screw locations & horn ring gubbins. Let me find it.

Note: Plastic covers have changed a number of times & their centres ~ From bright red to black & gold with Growler, but mounting has remained constant IIRC.

 

Thanks Glyn, I’m heading to my shop right now to try this out.

 

Let me know how it goes. It will help improve my explanations. I'm inclined to take certain things forgranted. Others say too much & confuse the issue. I'm trying to hit a happy medium. I've been doing this for a long time on MBWorld where I moderate & I'm an ambassador. Some measurement of my suggestions would be appreciated. I request these critiques from time to time at MBWorld where I have 20,000 posts.

Were you able to remove the wheel?

 

Thanks Glyn,

I probably misunderstood your directions but they didn’t seem to apply to my car. I am attaching some photos of the Derrington wheel as installed. Hopefully you can see that there is no way to access the area behind the horn ring to access screws. If I remove.the nuts from the back I still would not be able to tighten them upon re-installation. Am I missing something? Thanks again for you help.

 

Very strange. Hopefully Bill Mac will respond. He has a Genuine Derrington on his car. How do you get the 4 screws out that hold the plastic on. Very Strange. Bill was watching us correspond this morning. Aussies are like South Africans ~ not shy to speak up. He never said a word.

Genuine Derrington. The 4 holes for attachment of the plastic cover with screws are as clear as daylight. May not be a genuine Derrington or has an incorrect boss that covers the screw holes. How is the bloody plastic cover held on ??? That is a genuine early Mk2 plastic cover with the horn ring protruding from the ends and not below as with later longer wheel centres. It almost looks as if the Boss is blocking access.

Maybe you should loosen all the boss nuts first but that is not conventional practice. It's almost as if someone has fitted a spacer to stop the hornring from clattering on the lower spoke. The signature sound of a Derrington.

 

Original early standard Horn.







Later Derrington Horn.

 

Glyn, maybe the Jaguar plastic (Bakelite) piece is screwed to the boss.
A homemade slot screwdriver with a 90 degree bend would have to be made _ it would also have to be very shallow, but it could work to catch the flat headed bolts.
Something like that would certainly be needed because of the nylon lock nuts being used _ at least that's what those nuts look like.

The plastic piece is removed with the boss ?

This is conceivable to me as the plastic piece sits quite far away from the frame of the steering wheel.

I don't know if it would fit in between the 4 bolts though.
Just thinking.

 

Yes Jeff ~ but they are not standard like that. I think someone has been fiddling.

But in this case it might be the only answer. Not a nice job.

 

Perhaps the four flat heat bolts that are hidden are epoxied to the boss, that would enable the lock nuts to be turned.
Without someway of keeping the bolts from turning, they would just rotate with the lock nuts that are used.

Windrush, you should be able to use a mirror and an LED pen light to see the brass protrusions from the plastic piece, are they even there ?
Maybe something was modified in they way the plastic piece is attached ???

 

Well whatever you cant get to the boss centre nut the way it is.

They used to attach in the conventional manner at one time. Bedtime!

 

Most definitely someone has been fiddling.
It looks like the boss is big enough to catch the plastic piece, and that would enable it to clear the bolts (flat head screws) ?

 

Here is something to puzzle over. You must have to take off the nut's first even though I think it's been fiddled with. If this is an original.

 

That's what I imagined it to be like in post #8.
About a 3/16 piece of flat bar where the end is bent over just far enough to catch the slots on the big screws so the nuts can be undone.
It would have to be ground or filed to fit the slots. (and be shallow enough)

Just thinking outload again.
That's all I can think of for now.

 

Derrington steering wheel problems.
Sorry everyone as i have not picked up on this problem earlier.
I have been head down and tail up on my MK1 and some problems on my Piper Cherokee.
The Mk1 had a number of fuel leaks in the engine area requiring new float needles, change of the modern fuel filter and still needs a new diaphragm in one carby.
The Cherokee has a problem in the cable control of the constant speed propeller.

I'll have a check on my Derrington and get back to you later this week.

 

Thanks to everyone for this thoughtful analysis. The rim fits nice and tight and there is no obvious sign of modification. I like the idea that the bolts are epoxied in to keep them from spinning but it seems unlikely that they were designed that way. I suppose I could just remove all the nuts and pull the wheel off but I’m not sure I could ever get it back on again. I’m sure there is an easy solution that is staring me in the face but maybe some other member who has the same wheel and the instructions will see this thread and respond.

 

One of the problems is that there are genuine Vic Derrington originals out there (not that many) and there is the Moto Lita copy that you can buy to this day that takes the B33C hub. Which are we actually talking about??? Bill has a genuine Derrington to my knowledge.

What makes me wonder is that the horn ring appears to sit proud of the lower spoke.

This has always been the standard Jaguar access to the horn cover & Vic always worked with Lyons. He even made the standard Jaguar woodrim for Lyons which are as rare as rocking horse droppings.

 

That looks to me like the early steering wheel centre that just pulls off rather than being screwed in from the back, my 1959 car has one of these and I recall its on two spring loaded clips, have a look at this which is what mine was and what I think you have:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/185148027...iABEgL3DvD_BwE

 

You may have just hit the nail on the head Homer. See standard later mount in my post above. Those very early covers the rubber? and/or steel clip would rot & they simply fell off. No doubt the reason for the move to the 4 screw mount. That was a very, very early cover on the old style fatter & flatter spoke wheel.

If so Windrush ~ just give the cover a tug and it should expose all. There were many minor changes made to early production cars to fix niggles. The very first Mk2 went on sale/was sold on 15 July 1959. What parts Vic Derrington used on his early wheels we don't know. Lost in the annals of time.

That self same cover was made as a 4 screw mount.

 

I’m also leaning toward Homer’s recommendation. There doesn’t seem to be any other reasonable explanation. As soon as I get my courage up I will try gently pulling it off.