Steering wheel extension for tall bastards.

Damn right I have the oven the melts different colors together it's like a gourmet meal.

 

Had this issue in my 70's mini cooper(yes right hand drive and awesome). I had to trim to metal brackets down and remount the rails and raised the front of the seat to fit me in it being 6'2". I wish I would of thought of extending the wheel out.

 

Any thoughts on modding how it all mounts to the truck instead?
Like making the telescoping track longer.
Yes would have to be over engineered and stronger than stock. Safety first.

 

Looks almost too easy
Extend under hood here at the coupler ( cut coupler in half, weld tube your desired length between halves)

Or in the interior here (cut shaft weld tube in )


Then extend your other mounts

 

Open to suggestions. I personally have never tried it. I know people have.

 

Sounds like a lot of cutting, welding, and cursing. I'm open to it. But right now I'm gonna get this spacer made because it seems much simpler. In addition it won't be a permanent mod just bolt on and a sprinkle of wiring.

 

Sound good seems like a spacer might involve a little less cursing
BUT if that spacer doesn't work
Figure out how much you want to extend it, (for this example and my pencil drawing let's say 2"- but it could be whatever) Buy another coupler extend it 2" (if you want send it to me I'll extend it and send it back )
The rest is extra nuts and bolts and flat stock with holes drilled at whatever extension length you decided

All easily reversible - unbolt plates put stock coupler back in

All your getting is a quick pencil drawing my youngest kid is 16 and ate all of my crayons years ago

 

I can def see that working. Will have to keep it in mind.

 

That's ridiculous. I'm 6'3" and I used to work for a dealership. There were a few times when I had to move a customer's car around the lot, pull it through the car wash or something like that. I always tried to avoid adjusting anything in their car, and if I did it was just because I physically couldn't get in, and the only thing I would possibly adjust was to slide the seat back so I could get in, and then I would do my best to adjust it back when I got out. I hate when I go to get my truck back from the dealership and bang my knees on the dash trying to get in because someone slid the seat all the way up. I don't care that you moved it, just slide it back so I can get back in the damn thing.

 

id imagine if you start changing the steering setup you will eventually go against the stock airbag setup. It was my understanding that the sensor under the seat gauges distance to the wheel, so outside of stock spec it may not deploy as intended stock.

But then I'd hazard a guess anyone who wants to remove the wheel entirely or do whatever else probably doesn't care about the airbag. The modern age of car safety hasn't made itself too friendly with modification.

 

Sensor under the seat should be g force sensor. Correct me if I'm wrong anyone.

The way I'm going about it will extend the harness inside so everything will still be hooked up. Considering I will be sitting in a normal seating position after the mod I'm not to worried about the airbag not working properly.

I have run with no airbags in the past I will do it again if I need to. But I'm doing my best to make this a safe clean mod.

 

Not to my understanding but maybe I'm wrong. What I understood is that it is a seat position sensor that detects how far forward your driver seat is in relation to the seat rails, thus seat/steering wheel distance. It's basically a magnetic type sensor that gets interupted by piece of steel rail based on positioning.

 

A little tall to have a Napoleon complex don't ya think?

 

Based on some of the suggestions, I'm not sure everyone knows what parts telescope and what parts don't. Only the red part moves and it is only allowed to move as far as the slots in that mount allow it (one for tilt and one for telescoping). The telescoping slot is really only visible on the back side of this diagram. You can see it in the quoted pic facing up (the 'bolt' is actually stationary and the slot moves).

So, some section of the 'red' part has to be extended (or the mount moved, but then the locking lever would move and you would instead have to extend something else).

I'm not even tall; but, I find the wheel uncomfortably distant on long trips. Maybe if the center arm rest went further forward or the door arm rest was closer it wouldn't be a problem for me. I see people complaining it only telescopes a couple of inches... DUDE... it only moves ~7/8 of an inch!!!

 

It's nice seeing other tall people having tall people problems. I'm still waiting for somebody to figure out how to raise the rear view mirror like the 2nd gen, and adjustable height for my damn seat. Damn I should've paid more attention in my test drive! Help me fellow tall bro, help me.

I used to squeeze myself in to this clown car to hoon around town and piss my neighbors off, but somehow it was more comfortable than my taco



p.s. i have a glock too can i party with you guys

 

I'm 5'10". Not really tall/not short. The main issue for me its my left leg. In one seat position my legs are really comfortable but the steering wheel doesn't extend enough to reach in a comfortable position for roads with a lot of turns. If I move the seat one click forward my hands are a lot more comfortable but my resting leg its fixed in one position which is not comfortable for long drives.

So a steering wheel extension would work great for me. Since my issue is mainly with my left leg I decided to try something different and modified the foot rest.

After removing the floor mat and trim I found out that the foot rest its just a piece of dense foam. I looked online for the part number to see if I could find it just in case this doesn't work out. All searches showed an FJ foot rest which is plastic.



I put tape all around the foam and marked about an inch below the flat side of the foot rest.



I used a Japanese pull saw to cut all around to make sure I was cutting in the line. I finished the cut using a cheap had saw.


After some clean up.


Installed in the truck.


New gap between carpet and foam rest.


So far it does make it more comfortable but haven't driven enough to see if I removed too much or too little.

I know this inst a steering wheel fix but it might help out some people. If you don't like it, you can always glue back the piece that was removed. To make it even easier you can remove the foam completely.

Hope this helps.

 

@bradshawnh Any thoughts on this before I go tearing into things?

 

Fucking miss my rusty e30

 

You and me both. All 3 of mine were bought for a grand or under. I had a mint 91 318is that I unloaded for 3k in '08. That bitch would fetch 7-8 in todays market. Still kicking myself.

The guy I sold the E21 above to was a taco guy. He got rear ended by a flat bed 10 days after he bought it. I still toss and turn at night thinking about it

 

I've heard the same rumor. Not sure if it is true or not. Will ask my dad to ask a Toyota FTS!

Regardless, think of this. If the steering wheel is abnormally far away from you now, wouldn't moving it closer (and not changing the seat rail position) make the airbag calculation MORE effective because now the airbag is placed in a more proportionally correct spot for your body?