After a recent purchase of tech bulletins I found this little article and I thought I would post it as reference. There are posts from the past referring to this condition from various folks, but I've not found this official response from Oldsmobile anywhere here.....Happy Motoring!

 

Thanks for sharing!

 

Interesting tidbit of info . I seem to remember this happening years ago .
After 52 years those plasticizers are long gone , and those wheels shrivel and crack .

 

Cool!

 

The last car I had with one of those hard plastic steering wheels was a 1986 Calais Supreme. The steering wheel cracked and started losing chunks of plastic when it was three or four years old. I guess it had sweated out by then. My low-tech solution was to put on a genuine leather stitch-on leather steering wheel cover, which looked and felt nicer than the hard plastic. Interestingly, the car I had before it was a 1977 Buick Skylark (Nova clone) that had a softer plastic wheel that had no problems. Likewise, the '84 Buick Century that I had after the Calais got wrecked had the same type of wheel. That soft plastic wheel saw use across GM's lines in the '70s and '80s, especially in less expensive models. It may not have been as pretty but to me, was a more satisfactory wheel in that it was more comfortable to grip and it didn't crack apart.

 

"in the hot sun with the windows rolled up" eh? On my car, it happens in the garage with the convertible top down.

 

Thanks for posting that. Interesting to see Olds recognized the de-plasticizing issue back then. Just to be clear, I believe this condition is specific to the 'sport' wheels - N34 in '69 and the 4-spoke wheel in '70. The hard bakelite wheels certainly shrink and crack but I've never seen one de-plasticize. The rubbery material used on the sport wheels was not bakelite and this material is what sweats the goo and, yeah, you'd think after 50+ years these things would be like an old orange that was squeezed and has no more juice but my N34 wheel still sweats to this day. And that's in a cool garage under a car cover. Maybe in another 50 years it'll dry up.

 

The notes in the bulletins are awesome to have! Quite a few tidbits in there that will help elevate restorations.

I've had good luck with a product from SEM called Tac Free on the sticky sport steering wheels.

https://www.semproducts.com/product/tac-free/free

 

I use a mechanics hand cleaner degreaser.

 

Do you spray it on a cloth and just wipe it over the wheel?

 

Amen. Waterless cleaner works well on so many things.

 

I looked up the SEM Tac-free since I'm a fan of their products. Unfortunately, it looks like a permanent coating you apply like paint that must 'seal' the surface. At least that's what it looked like in the short product description.