I've got some NOS license plates with the early reflective paint that smell bad like stinkin armpits. You know, the seething kind like those shakey old skinny dudes have. Armor all on some rubber floormats smells just like chicken shit. The first time I used it I was on the farm and kept looking all over in my econoline becuase I though I had tracked in some when I was cleaning it out.
Painting the steering wheel with enamel should stop the smell. The next stage after stinky is crumbly....
i never saw this post before now. --------- bought a stinkin 57 vette steering wheel at a swapmeet a couple weeks ago & when i was buying it i could smell something BAD! first i thought is that me? my shirt? NOOOOOO it must be this lady i was buying it from she looked like she was up all night & smells like she slept on a wet tent or something bad! anyway the wheel ended up stinkin up the truck on the ride home & someone pinpointed the smell to the wheel. -------now its stinkin up the area of garage it sits in. ----- i tell everyone a guy died in the vette this wheel came off of & he laid over the wheel dead for a month out in the sun!
I have a couple of old screwdrivers and an orange '53 Ford promo model car that all smell like barf. We take a lot of things for granted today, like scent-free plastic. You'd think that in 50 years, the smell would die down, but it never does. -KK
I was having lunch with my daughter at her school earlier this week. I caught a whiff of something nasty. I smelled my food. Smelled my fork. Smelled my daughter. Smelled my hand. Smelled my pits. Smelled the little girl next to me (don't be wierd!). It got stronger and stronger. Then I heard someone shout "Barf!" There was a huge plie of puke on the floor right behind me. Other than that, the school lunch was pretty good.
Some of the early plastics were actually made from Soy Beans. There is a famous pic of Henry Ford whacking a 40s' deck lid with a sledge hammer to show how strong the stuff was. I heard the stuff would stink to high heaven when it got hot. They also used it in steering wheels.
ALCOHOL, no really! Go to your local hardware store, buy a can of alcohol. It's a great cleaner. Keep washing the wheel till the paper towels are clean- may take many wipes. After that maybe once a month or before a long tour. Works great on my A wheels. Also keeps your hands clean. Note, Jim Bean does not work!
Hahahaha... I had a new/old shifter knob that stunk like ASS!! Sprayed it with a couple of coats of clear and sealed up the smell. That did the trick. -stick
ive had some old tools with plastic handles smell like barf...needless to say ..Had them...i got rid of the dam things..hard to have a hangover and be working with those tools...not to mention hard enough to be working with a hangover..didnt need any help with barf smelling tools.
True bakelite smells kinda nice. If you have something in your hands that you suspect might be bakelite, rub your finger on one spot vigorously for a few seconds, then smell it. It has a sweet chemical smell, kind of like a mixture of new tires and chicklets. I've never heard of it smelling like barf, though. That SUCKS. Maybe you could clean it real good and then spray paint it or something?
Maybe the previous owner(s) had poor hygeine ... imagine thousands of miles with grubby digits grinding dead skin cells and god know what else into the plastic... yuck.. I'm gonna go home and wipe some alcohol on my steering wheels now.
I've got an old Philip's head that stinks like that, my girlfriend made me take it out to the garage and out of the house !..lol
The drawer in my tool box that contains Crapsman screwdrivers smells like shit! Imagine that! Actually, it smells like across between barf and stinky shoes.
When i bought the steering wheel for my merc i was told it came off a boat in the 60's. it smelled like f%@*ing ass. I wanted to throw up. I painted it and cleared it a few times and it doesnt smell anymore. It was so bad i almost didnt use it out of fear it would transfer to my hands and never wash off.
If the wheel gets cracked from the plastic shrinking, the metal core is exposed and gradually there is a void formed between the plastic and the metal core. In there you get mold and decay, and really bad is like Nads said, the casein in the plastic rots from the inside. The one in my Galaxie had a laced cover on it, man when I took it off that was nasty. I took the wheel off and soaked it in vinegar. That seems to have done the trick. I still run a baby wipe over it once in awhile. But so far no stink after two years.
I've had heaps of Pommy cars from the sixties and seventies. If I left them in the sun ( Aussie sun )with the windows up, it would fog the windows with horrible greasy shit. I figure it was the plasticizers leachin from the trim. Also, ever TIG welded without gloves? Man do your hands smell like death after that.
bakelite smells like formaldehyde when "warmed". it's phenolformaldehyde so that's why it stinks so bad like an embalmer's basement. you can test it to see if it's bakelite other than sniffing...this is a trick bakelite hunters (like my girlfriend and mother) use. take some Semichrome polish and a white paper towel. put some polish on the paper towel, just a little, then rub a piece of the suspected bakelite. if it is bakelite it will rub off a little and will be brown on the paper towel.
A bunch of my old Craftsman screwdrivers have the smell and get covered with white fungus looking crap. My old black handle Snap On screwdrivers started oozing a smelly/oily liquid out of the handles. I called Snap On and they said it was a know problem with 80's plastic handle stuff. Swapped them for a brand new cushion grip set.
About the bad smelling steering wheel smells, just hang them air fresheners all over the wheel as ya drive.....hey, now there's an Idea!
or urinal cakes...maybe tile your floor instead of carpet? make sure the tiles cracked though first...might fit the puke scent better
The '52 Lincoln wheel in my shoebox smells like romano cheese, I try not to smell my fingers too much while driving.
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