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Well this bank holiday weekend I did it!. Campy has gone electric (well on the steering front anyway).
project has been building up in the background for some time.
I love our T25 but it has a few issues and niggles. All of theses negatives are more than balanced out by the positives of owning a characterfull, pretty vehicle that is not losing value, causes fellow enthusiasts to wave and toot their horns, can double up as a beach hut.
Niggle 1)
The original steering wheel was starting to degrade. 80's hard plastic steering wheels reach a point in their lives when you can no longer pretend that they are a bit grubby and need a deep clean. Try as you might you can never keep them from getting sticky for long. The plastic basically begins to break down and released some of the chemicals that were previously locked in its structure. Sure you can buy a steering wheel cover but a) I just dont like them. b) 17inch diameter steeringwheels are very much in the minority.
Niggle 2)
The 17" wheel is just that fraction too big to allow comfortably sitting in the divers seat at 90 degrees when parked up and in picknick mode. It also comes very close to your thighs particularly if you have a swivel base on the drivers seat which raises it by another inch.
Niggle 3)
The standard wheel is pretty ugly.
Niggle 4) Even at 17" diameter the effort required to go lock to lock whilst startionary (or very close to stationary) is off the scale high. My dad used to be a lorry driver and said it reminds him of tring to manouver in a 1960's Foden Truck. (thats not necessarilly a compliment as he used to stand up to shunt in that!)
Niggle 5 & the last straw!) A couple of weeks ago we took my inlaws on a sunday drive over to a VERY busy Cleethorpes. This was a mistake as we had chosen a particularly hot bank holiday weekend for the excursion. The place was heaving and to say parking was at a premium is an understatement. After an Hour of manouvering and shunting around the various seafron carparks, I finally surrendered and we headed off to a very beautiful local park. Next morning I could hardly move my shoulders. Busy Cleathorpes plus the T25's low speed Steering weight had damaged me.
I rarely need much encouragement to get a new gadget or shiney trinket so did not resist any longer.
Following much research I ordered a retrofit powersteering kit from a chap on Ebay who had recieved really good feedback from other clients, and decided (in for a penny) to mate it with a really classy and slightly smaller wheel and boss.
The result is nothing short of a transformation.
I could genuinely steer the T25 at standstill with no wheel on the Steering Boss!
Plus the wheel looks fabulous, the kit fitted exactly as described and im a very happy boy.