Steering wheel spacer installation, general procedure

These instruction guide is generic, not referring to a specific vehicle, and we wrote this in as much detail as possible to offer help with the installation of our steering wheel spacers on all cars for which we have not been able to do the installation ourselves yet, and not even a video tutorial.

This because our catalogue gets bigger and bigger, the cars on which our steering wheel spacer can be installed are thousands, and for obvious reasons we can’t shot a video on all of them.

The experience gained over the years made us possible to summarize the procedural analogies plot them in this write up.

The reader will have to expect slight and intuitive differences when applying this procedure to his 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, and to consider getting help by a professional mechanic.

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.

  • Before starting, park the car with the straight wheels, because the gearcutting of the steering wheel may not have a marker that forces the orientation of the steering wheel itself, and you could easily reassemble it later on by “skipping a tooth” and find yourself with the steering wheel visibly crooked on straight routes.
  •  Disconnect the battery during the whole procedure.
  • Be careful when handling cables. Never pull them hard. They all have snap-on connectors, take some time to see how to unlock them.

INSTALLATION

It is very useful to watch a couple of videos on the internet by searching “NAME OF YOUR CAR steering wheel removal” or “airbag removal” to familiarize with the procedure.

  • REMOVE THE AIRBAG UNIT from the steering wheel.

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, clamp springs has to be released (or screws unscrewed). Take your time to locate the springs (or screws): the access holes to unlock the airbag can be visible on the sides of the steering wheel, and in some cars they can be covered by plastic caps, to remove which must be pryed with a small and flat screwdriver.

It 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.

When the airbag is in your hands, disconnect the connector (can be 1 or 2). The connector will not come off even when you pull hard unless you first lift the safety clip with a flat screwdriver, and even after you lifted the secure clip, pulling out the connector may require force.

If there are screws instead of springs, they are usually hard to unlock, but then it only takes a few turns to be completely unscrewed. They are made to stay in place and not fall on the car’s floor even when unscrewed. Dont’ attempt to fully remove them from the steering wheel, once you free the airbag, it’s enough.

Lay the airbag far away from everyone.

  • REMOVE THE STEERING WHEEL:  steering wheels are usually fixed on the steering column by a big bolt OR a big nut. Just unscrew it.

Unscrew the central nut / screw without removing it completely: if the car is a few years old, the steering wheel can be locked (sort of “glue effect”) on the steering column and to unlock it you need to pull hard. 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.
An extractor may be required to unlock the wheel.

After you are sure that the steering wheel slides on the steering column, remove the nut/screw and disconnect the connector (can be more than 1) that still connect the steering wheel buttons to the car.
Pull out the steering wheel by gently sliding the cables into the steering wheel slots.

Now you can install the spacer.

  • UNPACKING THE STEERING WHEEL SPACER, PREPARING TO INSTALL

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, when he car is born with the steering wheel fixed to the column by a pass-through bolt, it is not necessary to separate the 2 parts of the spacer (usually Renault, Peugeot, and BMW).

Pay attention to this detail, because if you skip this step, your steering wheel will not be secured to the steering column!

Insert the aluminum hub into the steering column. The airbag wiring harness must pass through the slot made in the spacer.  Tighten the central big nut/screw that holds the steering wheel on the steering column to a torque of at least 40 Nm. Torque vary from car manufacturer to another, minimum is 40 Nm, maximum is 70 Nm.

Don’t overtorque! You can either 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 if in a quarter turn you unlock the nut/bolt, the same force plus a little more in the opposite direction will be more than enough to secure the steering wheel in place. By the way, it is better to apply less torque than overtorque: a loosen bolt/nut can be immediately recognized because you will feel a little play on the steering wheel even before you start the car, while an overtorqued bolt/nut can break down suddenly but not immediately.

Mount the steel part of the spacer (the one that replicate the steering wheel shaft) to the aluminum part, tightening the 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 uning 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 not difficult itself, but may be very uncomfortable to perform. We can say it is as easy as uncomfortable, because putting back in place the airbag is matter of 1 second push, while doing the set up prior to this requires to work very close to the steering wheel (think about hug it, seriously), holding the airbag with one hand and reconnecting its connectors with the other one, working in a tiny room, paying attention not to accidentaly pull the wires themselves in while.

We strongly suggest, if it is the first time you do this operation, to watch a video if available, consult the car’s workshop manual or ask a professional. We keep do specific video for this, anytime we have a car available.

Approach yourself to the steering wheel (slide the seat frontward if possible) and pre-align the airbag in the steering wheel housing. To reconnect the airbag, which usually wirks as an horn too, you must re-connect the horn cable and the airbag connector(s).

There isn’t a specific sequence: connect what is easier at last, and the shorter first. The longest wire will still make possible to handle the airbag to connect the toughest, while not viceversa.

Be careful not to swap the airbag connectors if there are 2, and not to twist their orientation: the connectors have different colors to prevent this, and tabs that obstruct  inserting them in the wrong direction, 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 enough to be reconnected, but there may be little room to tuck your hand back in, and you may need to pre-align the entire airbag to the steering wheel, and use your fingers to push the connectors in. It’s a bit of a “touch-feel” job, rather than a visual one, so take a lot of time and patience. You hear a “click” when the connector is inserted and then when you press the safety clip.

NOTE: In a few cases the airbag cables are too short to be reconnected. In this case, the only solution is to cut and extend them using a cable of equal diameter section, or you can try 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. The important thing is that the wires must never be under pull.

In case cut and extension is mandatory, we suggest doing it them one by one and not alltogether because there is a risk of making mistakes, splicing them wrong and compromising the functionality of the airbag, with unpredictable and potentially very dangerous outcomes.

This operation must be do with the battery disconnected, and wire of the same section must be choosen. Ask a car electrician for this. Don’t simply measure the diameter of the wire with a caliber.

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.

Now that everything is re-connected, push back the airbag into the steering wheel: align it in its housing as it was before, and if it is fixed by the springs, push hard (as when you give a hit of the horn) until they all click.

If the airbag was fixed on the steering wheel by the little bolts, just re-tighten them.  Do it gradually side by side.

There is no need to tighten them with excessive force, when you can no longer turn the wrench (torx or Allen) with your hand it is enough. We still suggest trying to watch more than one tutorial on the internet from those who have already done this work.

You are done now: ensure the airbag has the same mobility inside the steering wheel as it was before you installed the spacer. You simply should be able to press the horn with the same gap/feeling as before.

  • 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.

  • AFTER INSTALLATION CHECKLIST

If you’ve done everything right:

  • no warning lights will come on after installation. ESP light may stay on for a few km because the car may “understand” you worked on the steering wheel while the battery was disconnected, but the sensor will re-calibrate itself and the light will turn off after 1-2 km.  To avoid this, you can turn the steering wheel lock to lock and should be enough to clear the light. By the way, this usually happen only to BMW cars, and pretty rarely too.
  • The stalks automatically return, as before
  • When turning the steering wheel, no noises or clicks should be heard.
  • The steering effort should feel as before the installation,
  • The steering wheel buttons, if available on the car, must all work immediately, as before.
  • The horn operates as before and the steering wheel adjustments (both tilt and depth) are working as before
  • 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!

Usually it is still possible even to drive the car, especially with just warning lights on or little plastic noises coming from the dashboard. Of course, we advice NOT TO DRIVE ON PUBLIC ROAD in this situation. You can check yourself if you have done every step of the the installation properly, if you didn’t skip anything, and ASK US!

We answer from Italy, so, consider time zone and different holiday days than your country, which may be in some cases the reason of a not immediate answer. Drop an email to help@spacershop.com or try to reach us on socials.

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