From injector removal to valve adjustment, now to installing a new nicer steering wheel, busy day!! In my hurry though I just kinda popped the old wheel off and didn't pay attention to the exact angle, although it was pretty much straight up and down. I moved everything over to the new wheel and then reinstalled. Looking at it, I don't think it is possible to be off a tooth or two on the spline, as the two groves on the wheel need to mate to the corresponding peice inside, therefore a slight missalignment isn't possible, you could only be off 180 degrees at a time. Also I didn't really mess with the cable reel, it moved a bit left and right, but never more than a few degrees, so I didn't think recentering process was needed. Could someone confirm that I am correct, that I won't hop in and have the wheel be slightly off in the spring or worse an SRS light? It is an 01 BTW.

 

Anyone know the answer to this?

 

You can have the wheel off a tooth or two, no matter how hard you try to get it straight you really won't know until you drive it. It happened to me. If you drive it and find that the wheel is off to the left or right, go back home and pull the wheel and turn it a tooth or two in the other direction. It can be a pain, and I've had to adjust it a few times before I got it right. You might have gotten lucky though and got it straight the first shot, see how it goes after driving it. The teeth are quite fine so it is easy to miss it by a bit.

 

Yeah when I installed my aftermarket wheel I'm pretty sure I put it on off by a tooth.

I think was more concerned about lining up the tabs on the hub/clock spring more than anything else.

 

Yeah I guess I figured that as long as I lined those up then the wheel would have to be straight, but what you guys are saying is that you can still have those lined up and have a couple teeth either way?

What about the cable reel? I just made sure it was straight up, but it has pins that mate into the back of the wheel itself. My thought is unless I physically turned it multiple times, then it couldn't be off at all?

 

Yes it is easy to be off a tooth or two, you'll know when you go to drive the car for the first time.

You should be safe with the cable reel as long as it didn't move like 180 -360 degrees or more, there is a centering procedure if you by chance did move it a large amount but it sounds like you are fine. There is a lot of slack in the system, so as long as you are close to center when you start you will be fine.

 

The cable reel will move as many teeth as you put it. In other words, yes you can be any number of teeth off, and the cable reel will just sit with the wheel in that non-centered position.

I don't recall any aftermarket hubs or oem having a master-spline (a spline that can only be put together in one clock position)

 

It is keyed that mates to a key inside of the counsole.

 

Yeah but the amount of adjustment within that range can allow the wheel to be off quite a few teeth. It is always best to mark the wheel splines before you remove the wheel but I have forgotten to do that in the past too, lol.

 

I always center the SRS reel with my wheels straight ( I think its 4.5 turns?) Then drive down the street with the wheel lose and adjust it as I'm going. The only way you'll get the wheel straight is to adjust it while the car is moving.