[ursus]

I purchased a puller from Bratton's to remove a stubborn steering wheel on my late 1931 coupe. I was unable to make it work because the gap beneath the wheel hub was too small to permit mounting the puller. I called Bratton's and was told to return it as this problem seems to occur often with the later steering column.

I was finally able to get the steering wheel off by dropping a red hot 3-inch bolt into the top of the column, leaving it in for a couple minutes, then quickly replacing it with another bolt of the same size that had been super-cooled in dry ice. The rapid shrinkage of the shaft relative to the hub taper allowed me to knock off the shaft with one solid rap on the top of the cooler bolt with a 3-pound hammer. The bolts used were of a diameter that just fit the shaft tube (can't recall the size).