Installing a Momo Club 4 Steering Wheel & a Grant Steering Wheel with Center Horn Buttons

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Momo Steering wheelCompared to the skinny grip of a stock wheel this wheel has a thick grip that comfortably fits your hand and reduces fatigue. Momo wheels are typically 1 " to 2 " closer to the driver. You will find that you have more control. Just bolt it on and you're ready to roll. This is a Momo Club 4 Steering wheel in all black leather with the Momo horn button and the adapter hub #4513 (Ford 1972 - 92) for a Hummer H1. You have to have the adapter hub to install any Momo wheel in a Hummer. Assemble the adapter hub to the steering wheel. Park the truck with the wheels pointing exactly straight. Pull off the center leather cover to expose the hub. Some styles of Momo's use other methods. Use a 15/16 deep socket to remove the wheel nut. Grab the wheel like you are steering and wiggle to the right and left to remove the old wheel. You can also use a steering wheel puller. Clean off the hub and coat it with a little grease. Line up the new wheel exactly straight and push it on the hub and tighten the hub nut. Take the truck for a ride to make sure that the wheel is straight.

Note: Some Momo hub adapters have defective castings near the splines. If your new hub adapter doesn't easily slide on the splines get a replacement.

Most of the GRANT steering wheel adapter kits work perfectly, however, one LOT Number in particular....10 MAR 10, is a bad lot and the adapter included is not the correct size to fit on the spline. I bought three kits at the same time from this lot, and all were incorrect. Don't let a $10 part slow down your project, ask before you buy.


How do you Hook up the center Horn Button?

Horn Hot WireYou remove the steering wheel and the 2 plastic shields that surround the turn signal and wheel guts. Find the horn hot wire (it is a blue one on my 98) and solder an extension wire to it. If you touch this wire to ground the horn will sound.

Bottom of the steering wheel adapterThis photo shows the bottom of the steering wheel adapter with the brass slip rings used to bring the power to the horn switch.

Ford Horn ContactNow the tricky part. You need to bring the power wire (blue) to one of the slip rings on the steering wheel. You can either fashion a custom wiper to contact one of the horn slip rings or purchase and modify the Ford slip ring brush assembly. The first one I did from scratch using a piece of spring brass from the inside of a flashlight because I didn't know about the Ford part. The Hummer uses a early 80's Ford Escort steering column which may have many of the same parts as a Ford LTD2. That's why Hummer's have a Ford ignition key. The next slip ring brush I built using the Ford brush assembly which is a piece that fits on the hummer steering column hub with a spring loaded copper brush contactor.

Ford number E63Z-13A821-A ($28.95) AMG part #6016500 ($36.25) both described as a 'Horn Brush Contact'.

Modifying the Ford brush mechanism

Column HubThe Hummer / Ford Hub already has a cutout for the slip ring brush shown in the left picture.

Modified BrushOut of the box the outer pin is too far from the center to make contact with the outer ring of the Momo adapter. The inner pin is perfectly located. What you want to do is remove the outer pin from the Ford part. You snip the outside lead wire as close to the part as you can. Then cut about an 1/8" down on the guide hole with a razor blade to a slight lip that holds the contact pin from popping out of the hole. Pull the copper contact pin out with the remains of the wire lead. Screw the modified Ford part into the bottom of the plate with a Phillips sheet metal screw or a nut and bolt. The inner brush wire was then soldered to the blue hot lead. If you ground the brush the horn should sound.

Note: Some steering wheels will not line up with the slip rings and require slight adjustment of the brush. In addition some wheels will tighten down forcing the ford brush assembly into the slip rings thus jamming the wheel and damaging parts. Once you have the brush installed slip the wheel down over the hub and inspect the fit very carefully.


Horn PlateIf you mount the brush assembly under the plate you will not have to file it down to get the right height so it contacts the horn ring. This picture shows the plate removed with the Ford wiper mounted on the back side. I wish I'd thought of this. Thanks to Myk Manon for this tip!!!

Pickup RingReinstall the steering wheel and attach the wire from the inner wiper to one horn switch contact and the other horn switch contact to the ground tab on the wheel.

Finished ProductThe finished product installed in my 98 Hummer Wagon.

Installing a Grant Steering Wheel


Note: Use this article as a starting point. I received a call from an owner that bought the Grant items mentioned in this article in Oct 2006. He said that some of the installation kits are redundent and some may not the same anymore. Before you order, check with the vendor to see what you are getting.

Grant WheelI didn't like the standard wheel and I decided that I wanted to go with more of an OE look than the Momo provided, so I looked into getting the actual OE '04 wheel.  Against it was the price ($563.44), and the color; black/brown just doesn't go with an all gray interior.  The manufacturer of the OE wheel wasn't hard to determine as the early '04s had "Grant" stamped on the lower spoke.  A quick search of Grant Products showed the model to be a custom version of one of the 'Signature' series 'Corsa Collection' wheels.  The wheel is normally all black, or has the top and bottom arc in color, whereas the new H1 wheel has just the top arc in color.  My vehicle's color is Firehouse Red so I went with the #1021 ($277.61) .

To attach the wheel to the the column without the center horn button an inexpensive ($26.84) Installation Kit #4270 is required. If you want the '04 center button, which I did, you'll need a different and more expensive ($43.26) Installation Kit #4271, and an additional part for the steering column to bring the horn connections up to the back of the wheel. You can either use AMG part #6016500 ($36.25), or the identical Ford item part #E63Z-13A821-A ($28.95), both described as a 'Horn Brush Contact'. See above Momo article. If you can't find the installation kit try a Grant 3249 which works.

The Grant wheel horn wiring is a little simpler than that detailed for the Momo because there is no need to modify the Horn Brush Contact, just secure to the plate with a self tapping/sheet metal screw. The two spring brushes line up perfectly with the slip rings on the back of the steering wheel boss. Cut the connector from the Horn Brush Contact and splice the ends into the horn wire and a ground just like the Momo install.

I spliced in just behind where the horn wire plugs into the harness. You can leave the horn wire connected if you want to have use of both center push and stalk, or you can unplug the horn wire and use the stalk push for something else. I'm debating whether to use it for flashing the headlights or to use it for the wash/wipe function I'd really like both though!

Finally, to finish it off nicely, I purchased the H1 horn push button, AMG part #6017256 ($35.75). Makes it look like a factory special edition!

 


I received this info from Matt on 5/2/2007.

I couldn’t get my hands on the actual Installation Kit #4271 which is hummer specific so I went with option number 2 from the article which is Installation kit # 3249. I was able to get the Ford item part #E63Z-13A821-A described as a 'Horn Brush Contact” to place the horn in the center of the wheel. With this set up I still had to modify the Ford part. All I had to do was remove the bottom brass pin to make it look like the one you made. I simply screwed the Ford part to the center hole of the hub plate. Everything lined up like it was made to be there. Just remember to mount on the under side. Then I just followed the Grant instructions on mounting the wheel. The only thing that you do not need to follow on the Grant instructions is cutting the “spring” on the horn button. As I posted below. Even though you have two wires coming from the hub to the horn button only one wire is being used since the Ford part has been modified to a one pin set up.

 

Wheel contactSo All you have to do is plug both wires to the horn button and install the horn button to the wheel. Cut off external portion of wire spring (this wire spring must make no contact with steering wheel). To do this, take horn button apart. use the tabs on back side (3 places). push in and away until all three release, allowing horn button to separate. Then snip off external portion of spring (use wire cutters or cutting pliers). Put back together same as you took apart.