Early 911T steering hub spacer question

PNW Targa · PNW Targa's Garage

I'm in the midst of installing a 30mm steering hub extension from AASE on my 1971 911T. I want to keep the original steering wheel, but need more room to for my long legs when working the dogleg transmission.

The initial steps all make sense. The horn mechanism popped off readily with a slight counter-clockwise twist. The 27mm nut came loose with the use of an impact driver. The steering wheel position on the spline is clearly marked for reinstallation.

However now that I'm in the midst of transferring parts over to their spacer hub, I'm not sure how to proceed. AASE lets you know the horn ring on the steering wheel will likely need to be drilled out due to the use of (three) rivets. But the next step is to screw the wheel to the spacer and the spacer to the rear spline hub.

Now if the rear spline hub were attached to the steering wheel with screws, it would be easy to separate the spline hub from the steering wheel. However the back of the steering wheel (with turn signal cancel ring removed - two screws) shows a smooth surface where the six connecting screws are located (pic below). From the front of the wheel, those six connectors show smooth button heads (pic below). Note that the horn ring is still in place. I haven't yet drilled out the three outer screws that keep it there.

How do you undo those six screws in order separate the rear spline hub from the steering wheel and transfer it over to the hub spacer? I can see a ghost image of a slotted screw head on the back side, but can't tell if this is because the slots were ground down after factory assembly, or if they are covered by something that needs to be removed in order to unscrew them. It seems unlikely to me that these six screws would need to be drilled out to separate the center spline hub from the steering wheel.

Can someone with experience working with these early steering wheels help me see what I'm missing?

dg567 · 10-01-2022, 06:25 PM

You need to grind off the 3 rivets holding the horn button retainer to get access to the 6 rivets holding the spline hub to the wheel.

Then you use the supplied hardware and screw the horn button retainer to the spacer through the steering wheel, and then the hub spline to the spacer.

PNW Targa · PNW Targa's Garage

Once the horn ring is off, do I then need to grind off the six rivets as well? That's the part that I was uncertain about.

dg567 · 10-01-2022, 06:34 PM

Correct.

PNW Targa · PNW Targa's Garage

Follow-up question - I used a grinder to take the heads off of the three horn ring rivets. I thought I'd be able to punch out the shaft of the headless rivets or pop the ring off. No luck with that approach. The fit remains much too tight.

What's the best strategy? Seems like these rivets need to be drilled out. I don't think that grinding off the rivet heads will do the trick.

dg567 · 10-02-2022, 11:19 AM

Yes, I had success with drilling them.

john walker's workshop · 10-02-2022, 04:38 PM

Huh, what? Momo spacer and no rivet grinding.

mepstein · 10-02-2022, 06:10 PM

You either need to drill out the rivets or grind off the head and use a press. I've done both. Neither is fun without a machine shop to set parts in place and use big machines but it can be done. I've done six of them and I'll do one more but just for my 67. It takes a couple hours - at least.

You would think that once you grind off the head that the rivets would come out easier than they do. They were probably installed with a big press or some industrial machine.