UNIVERSAL Steering wheel spacer installation guide

Steering wheel spacer installation, general procedure

These instruction guide is generic, does not belongs to a specific vehicle.

General procedure, made to help with our steering wheel spacer installation on all cars for which we couldn’t create dedicated instructions and tutorial yet.

The number of our products increases, as well as the cars on which our steering wheel spacer fits: we can’t shot a video on them all.

We summarized the procedural analogies between different cars and plot them in this write-up.

Users will find small and intuitive differences while applying this procedure to a specific car.

We therefore do not accept liability for any damage resulting from not taking this into consideration, and we strongly suggest to make your own researches about the removal of the airbag on your specific car before proceeding. Ask help to a professional mechanic.

Search on this same section of the website for your specific vehicle’s fitting instructions. We update this section periodically.

Search on the internet “NAME OF YOUR CAR steering wheel removal” or “airbag removal” to get confidence before steering wheel spacer installation.

Example of tutorial with CLAMPED airbag removal 

Example of tutorial with BOLTED airbag removal 

Pay attention to the misperception of the risk!

Removing an airbag can be very dangerous, it can explode in your hands! If you see it done in a minute on a video, it does not mean you can attempt to do it yourself.

• Ask yourself if it isn’t better to carry the vehicle to a professional shop and have the spacer installed. 
• It is not the type of job you can do if it is the first absolute time you do a yourself job on a car. Ask yourself this question: what if I’m stuck in the middle of the job, and I’m unable to go back reinstalling the steering wheel? How will I carry the car to a shop?
• Park in a place you can stay by yourself for a few hours without your car being an obstacle to anybody else. How about your mum, or your neighbour, need you to move the car urgently because they can’t pass, and you’re in the middle of the job with steering wheel on the passenger seat?
• Before starting, park the car with the straight wheels. The gearcutting of the steering wheel may not have a marker that forces its  orientation, and it’s easy to “skip a tooth”, leading to crooked steering wheel on straight routes.
•  Disconnect the battery during the whole procedure. Pull out negative terminal and put insulating material between the pending wire and the battery pole. The wire is thick and strong, it is prone to return to the pole by himself, leading to unwanted, unexpected, sparky and sudden reconnection.
• Be careful when handling cables. Never pull them hard. They all have snap-on connectors, take some time to see how to unlock them.

REMOVE THE AIRBAG UNIT

The airbags of the cars are anchored to the steering wheel OR by clamps, OR by bolts.  Usually, 1 to 3 clamps or 2 to 3 bolts.

To unlock the airbag, just release clamp springs (or unscrew the bolts). Take your time to locate the springs (or screws): the access holes to unlock the airbag are on the behind the steering wheel spokes.

They may be covered by plastic caps, which just pops out, or hidden in the soft plastic core.

• If your airbag is fixed by springs: push them in with a screwdriver until the corresponding part of the airbag clicks and pops out a little bit from the steering wheel. Remember: you can take a long time to find the proper action that release the lock. Don’t get angry, you don’t need strong force. Example of tutorial with CLAMPED airbag removal 
• If there are screws instead of springs, they are usually hard to unlock, then it only takes a few turns to be completely unscrewed. They are made to stay in place and not fall away when unscrewed. Dont’ attempt to fully remove them from the steering wheel, once you free the airbag, it’s enough. Example of tutorial with BOLTED airbag removal   

When the airbag is in your hands, disconnect the connector (can be 1 or 2). Connector(s) will not come off even if pulling hard, unless you first lift the safety clip with a flat screwdriver. Can still require force after this.

Lay the airbag far away from everyone.

REMOVE THE STEERING WHEEL

Steering wheels are fixed on the steering column by a big bolt OR a big nut.

Unscrew the central nut / screw without removing it completely: the steering wheel can make sort of “glue effect” on the steering column and you may need to pull and shake it hard to unlock it.

So, leave the nut (or screw) still partially screwed in and make sure that, by pulling, the steering wheel slides on the steering column and does not come off suddenly, tearing up the wires between the steering wheel and the car.
You may need a puller to unlock the wheel. It’s quite cheap, available at tool shop. It’s a generic too you can find useful in any other do-it-yourself job, even not car related, so, better have than not.

After ensuring the steering wheel slides on the steering column, remove the nut (screw), unplug the remaining connector(s), if any, and pull out the steering wheel by gently sliding the cables into the steering wheel slots.

Now you can install the spacer.

INSTALL THE STEERING WHEEL SPACER

The steering wheel spacer is shipped pre-assembled, and in order to proceed with the installation you must separate the aluminum part from the steel one by unscrewing the M6 Allen screws.

This may not be the case if your car has the steering wheel fixed by a bolt (usually Renault, Peugeot, and BMW): pass through bolt mounted steering wheel cars allows the spacer to be installed pre-assembled in 1 step.

NOTE: Honda S2000 has pass-through bolt, but because its steering wheel spacer is shared with the Civic EP3, it has to be installed in 2 steps, separating the black hub from the shaft first.

Pay attention to the following step, because if you skip it, the steering wheel spacer will not be secured to the steering column!

Insert the aluminum hub (the one with the black cover) into the steering column, passing the airbag wiring harness across the slot(s).  Tight the central big nut/screw (that was previously holding the steering wheel on the steering column itself) to a torque of at least 40 Nm. Torque vary from car manufacturer to another, minimum is 40 Nm, maximum is 70 Nm. Check on car maker’s workshop manual.

Don’t overtorque! You can strip the thread on the steering column or damage the spacer. If you don’t have the torque wrench, it is useful to know that a quarter turn unlocks the nut/bolt, so the same force plus a little more in the opposite direction is enough to secure the steering wheel.

Less torque is better than overtorque: a loosen bolt/nut can be immediately recognized because you will feel a little play on the steering wheel, while an overtorqued bolt/nut can break down suddenly but not immediately (days / months later).

If the spacer is full pass-through bolt-mounted, you can go on installing the steering wheel on it, otherwise:

Bolt the splined shaft part of the spacer to the hub you just secured on the column, by tightening the M6 allen screws to 10 Nm. This is average man’s wrist force. Again, less strenght will result in play between the 2 parts, too much tightening torque (for example using whole arm strenght) will result in stripped threads and damaged spacer.

Insert the wiring harness we provided (if the car requires it) into the rotating contact connector. It has a precise insertion direction and you can hear a “click” when it is well pushed inside. The other end of the harness will be connected later on to its mating part, coming from the steering wheel. You can skip this step if you don’t have the need to extend the OEM wires.

RE-INSTALLATION OF THE STEERING WHEEL

Insert the steering wheel into the spacer’s shaft and connect the connector from the steering wheel to the wiring harness included in the kit (if required, it should come from the car now). Route the airbag wiring harness through the steering wheel slot and leave it pending, you will reconnect it later on.

Tighten the nut/bolt to at least 40 Nm. If you have a ratchet wrench with a handle of about 30 cm (1 ft), a vigorous squeeze of a quarter turn may suffice.

Again DON’T OVERTORQUE! You can damage either the steering wheel, the steering wheel column and the spacer itself. It can result in a very expensive mistake and a safety issue we don’t take liability for! Do your own research one time more about which is the torque required to properly tight the central bolt/nut.

The best source for this type of information is the official car manufacturer’s workshop manual. Asking a professional is a good choice too.

RE-INSTALLATION OF THE AIRBAG

This step is as easy as uncomfortable, because put airbag back in place is quick, while the prior set up requires to:

• work very close to the steering wheel (think about hug it, seriously).
• hold the airbag with one hand and reconnect its connectors with the other one.
• work in a tiny room.
• pay attention not to accidentaly pull the wires in while.

We strongly suggest to watch a video or 2, consult the car’s workshop manual or ask a professional.

Approach yourself to the steering wheel (slide the seat frontward if possible) and pre-align the airbag in the steering wheel housing, reconnect the horn cable and the airbag connector(s), airbag unit is also the horn.

Connect the longest last, and the shorter first: longer wire allows mobility to handle the airbag to connect the toughest, while not viceversa.

Don’t swap the airbag connectors (if there are more than 1), and don’t twist their orientation: connectors have different colors to prevent swap, and tabs to avoid wrong direction reconnection, but if you push hard they still go in and break, because they are made of plastic, which can break down.

The airbag cable (or cables) are long, but you may find little the room to tuck your hand in: use your fingers. It’s a more a “touch-feel” than a visual job: take a lot of time and patience. You hear a “click” both when the connector is in its place and then when you press the safety clip.

IN CASE THE AIRBAG’S WIRES ARE SHORT.

There are some car models that have too short airbag cables, and is not possible to reconnect.

Check first if it’s possible to make the cables go a different route inside the steering wheel, to gain the missing length. You may need to cut or unscrew little plastic clips or covers inside the steering wheel to gain this lenght. Pay attention about never pull the wires during this.

Example of steering wheel spacer installation with internal wires re-route

If there is no way to gain lenght, the only solution is to cut and extend the wires, and it is better to have it done by a professional.

A car electrician is the best professional who can extend the wires, because has the proper tools, wires and know how to insulate the junctions.

The operation is simple, takes 5-10 min but if done wrongly can lead to unpredictable and potentially very dangerous outcomes.

It is useful to know that after 10 years or more, depending on the manufacturer, the functionality of the airbag is no longer guaranteed, regardless you install the steering wheel spacer or not. So, if you don’t want to extend the airbag wires, you can clear the warning light with its proper resistor.

Instructions to extend the wires

PUT AIRBAG BACK IN PLACE

Now that everything is re-connected, push back the airbag into the steering wheel. Align in its housing, and:

• if clamped by springs, push hard (as when you give a hit of the horn) until they all click.
• If bolted to the steering wheel frame, just re-tighten them.  Do it gradually side by side and son’t tight too hard: when you can no longer turn the wrench (torx or Allen) with your hand, it is enough. We still suggest watching more than one tutorial on the internet.

Check that the airbag has the same mobility inside the steering wheel as before the installation. Can you press the horn with the same gap/feeling as before? Perfect!

RECONNECT THE BATTERY

Nobody should stay sit in the car while reconnecting the battery. If you did everything properly, nothing bad is going to happen, just avoid the risk of airbag deploy.

If you did everything right:

• there are no warning lights. ESP light may stay on for a few km/miles, because the car “understood” you worked on the steering wheel while battery was disconnected. The ESP sensor perform calibration by itself and the light turn off quickly while driving. You can try turning the steering wheel lock to lock before driving: on some cars (BMW usually) it is enough to clear the light.
• The stalk levers returns automatically.
• You don’t hear noises or clicks when you turn the wheel.
• Steering effort feels as prior the installation.
• The steering wheel buttons, if available on the car, must all work immediately.
• The horn works.
• The existing steering wheel adjustments (both tilt and depth) works.
• No break-in period is necessary and the steering wheel, when driving, must be as straight as before.
• It may be that at idle the steering wheel vibrates slightly more than before, due to the greater distance from the engine, which is the source of vibrations.

Are you facing one or some of this issues combined? NO PANIC!

Ask us and wait for the answer, which may not be prompt.

We are in Italy: consider different time zone and holiday days, which may be the reason of a not immediate answer. Drop an email to help@spacershop.com or try to reach us on socials. Email contact is preferred. And please don’t write same message by mail, messenger, instagram, whatsapp alltogether, it’s very annoying and confusing. You may not be the only one in the World asking for help.

If the installation went not ok, usually it’s still possible to drive the car in case you need to just move it from where you parked it. Good to know in case you left the car in the middle of a workshop.

We advice NOT TO DRIVE ON PUBLIC ROAD in this situation. You can start checking by yourself if you have done every step of the the installation properly. Can’t figure out, ASK US!

Again, no panic and no hurry. If you are not confident driving the car and in urgent need of it, remove the spacer and wait for our answer. Removal is the opposite of fitting and will return the car stock.