Steering wheel swap

[jake91]

Hey guys I was noticing that 2004-2005 Bonneville GXP steering wheels look exactly like my 2003 Grand Prix one, And I was wondering if it would be a direct plug and play swap, Or are the airbag and radio controls different

 

Thanks

 

 

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[94 olds vert]

Whats the difference? The radio buttons are black thats all I can think of.

 

I have no idea about the internals.

[jake91]

Carbon fiber is the difference

 

 

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[Nas Escobar]

They may have the same spleen but may need the connectors/wiring harness for the new wheel.

[Psych0matt]

They may have the same spleen but may need the connectors/wiring harness for the new wheel.

 

I'm pretty sure cars don't have a spleen

 

 

 

 

(I think you meant spline? )

[Nas Escobar]

I'm pretty sure cars don't have a spleen

 

 

 

 

(I think you meant spline? )

 

That would be the auto correct so yes i did mean spline

[94 olds vert]

I played with wheels at the junkyard one day when I had my steering wheel puller.

 

Late 80s Bonneville steering wheels swap onto 1st gen GP columns.

 

Wiring was a bit different. Splines are the same.

[ManicMechanic]

Most any 1970s-2000 GM wheels will interchange. I know a guy with a 1977 Firebird wheel on his 2002 Tahoe.

[l67ss]

And has an 86 monte ss wheel in my 97 monte

[l67ss]

And I put a 92 lumina wheel in a friends 79 c10

[Nas Escobar]

The real problem I think is with premium GM cars. IDK if the Cadillacs are affected but I do know that you can't put a C5 corvette wheel in anything because the wiring won't match. Many try to put the Vette wheel in a Camaro but lose the airbag function.

[Taylor]

Hell, that is more of an airbag thing and even if the airbag looks the same, the connector can be different, and the airbag itself can be mounted different.

 

I just swapped my tan 97 Cutlass steering wheel with a 99~ish Silhouette steering wheel, and the airbag parts are totally different even though the bag itself looks identical (other than colour, and the silhouette having the SWOOSH instead of the rocket). The Cutlass airbag was held on with 4 torx bolts and had a pigtail coming out to plug the airbag into. The Silhouette steering wheel had 4 mounting tabs bolted into it, and the airbag itself was pushed in and held with spring loaded clips. Also the airbag didn't have a wiring pigtail. It looked like the airbag connected was pushed directly into the middle of the back of the airbag.

 

I was able to reuse my old airbag torx bolts with the airbag itself, but I would not be able to use the newer airbag at all without at least replacing the clockspring (which I want to do anyways because of wanting to add steeringwheel controls).

 

From my looking into this, I think the main difference now between the different GM clocksprings is probably the airbag connector. Need to do more research but for now funds are limited.

[Nas Escobar]

That's exactly what I was thinking. As far as I know, GM has always been cheap enough to use the same spline and possibly steering shaft on all the cars. I've heard of people adapting newer shafts onto older pinions to get working airbags or getting that oddball steering wheel on or to use the newer steering wheels. So at the end of the day it becomes a matter of " how bad do you want a steering wheel form (insert GM car here)?" In my case, a C5 wheel isn't worth all the trouble, not to mention that those don't show up at the junkyard very often. The sad thing of all this is that in 2000, GM used the 1.5 W steering wheel in the Camaro. I seriously thought it was put in there as a replacement until I realized that was stock.

 

 

If that looks familiar, then you know what I'm talking about. While on this subject, you can put a 2G Grand Prix wheel in a Firebird with minimum effort. The clockspring probably got changed (can't find the thread) but they claimed the bag works.

 

So you may be on to something BUT you may have to repin the car's connector to accept the donor clockspring. I assume over the years things got more complicated with steering wheel controls and all that good stuff.