Winter is here and even though I have insulated the garage and have a 35,000 BTU heater in there, it is often way too cold to work out there and there aren’t any urgent jobs for me to do at the moment anyway. So for some entertainment I borrowed my buddy’s Xbox 360 Force Feedback wheel and dug out my old Logitech wheel for the original Xbox. The wheels are great but resting them on your legs is sometimes not very secure when blasting down country lanes in a Lancer Evo for example. I found this post where a guy made a steering wheel frame and this inspired me to make my own. Obviously it would work with any steering wheel including PC and PlayStation that is designed for table mounting.
At the local Canadian Tire I reviewed the tubing and connectors they had available and decided to go with 1 1/2″ diameter rather than the smaller stuff to provide a bit more rigidity and because it looked a bit like a roll cage. For this design I bought,
- 20 ft x straight tube
- 4 x 90° elbows
- 2 x 45° bends
- 2 x Tee pieces
- ABS cement
- block of wood 24.5″ x 6″ x 1.5″ (found in garage)
- 4 x 1″ wood screws
- 8 x 1/2″ plastic screws
First I cut the straight tube into the following lengths,
- 2 x 24″
- 4 x 18″
- 2 x 7″
- 2 x 10″
Then to make the height adjustable - 2 x 6″
- 2 x 2″
Take the 2 x 24″ lengths and install 90° elbows on each end aligned to face the same way.
Next install 18″ lengths in each of the 4 elbows, then install the tee pieces to make the base as shown.
When you’re happy with it, cement all the joints together – NOTE: the cement I used dried very fast, you have about 3-5 seconds to make fine adjustments once you have put the pieces together, and then you’re done.
Now take the two 10″ lengths of tube and push them into the open end of the tee pieces. These pieces will need to be removable if you want to be able to change the height so we will screw them in place later, don’t glue these. Next the 45° bends go on the ends of each 10″ tube, again don’t glue these but you should glue the two 7″ tubes into the bends after that. Drill two horizontal holes just big enough for the wood screw shank, all the way through the tube, one at 1″ from the open end and one 4″ from the first hole. Decide which piece is going on which side and then drill out the outer holes to 7/16″ so you can get a screwdriver through. The block of wood goes between the 7″ tubes with 4 screws to hold it in place.
To adjust the height, remove the 8 screws in the 10″ tubes, install shorter tubes, reinstall the screws. By undoing 4 of these screws, the shelf can be removed entirely for easy storage.
I had some spare carbon fibre style wrap so applied that to the top of the wood block but it didn’t stick very well. The main idea for this was so that the suckers on the feet of the Logitech wheel would stick to it but the surface was uneven and the suckers were missing anyway so I ended up using velcro on double sided sponge tape. I was going to install a piece of wood on the base for the pedals to go on but it would just add weight.
Pic of finished product in action coming soon …
