Swapping a 04-05 Steering Wheel into a 01-03 Vehicle

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Sep 18, 2013

andrewnprice

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Swapping a 04-05 Steering Wheel into a 01-03 Vehicle

Hey guys, I am new to the forums here but I was recently working on a project when I ran across an issue that was not very well documented, and since I had used some of the resources posted on this site as part of this process: I decided to write a quick post to document some of the information that I had found. As you can probably guess from the title of this post I am currently swapping the steering wheel in my 2003 Honda Civic Hybrid for one from a 2005 EX Special Edition. Now before I get into the issue itself, you may be wondering why I would want to do this, and so I feel obliged to give some of my reasoning as to why this kind of parts transfer is something you might want to do.

1) I park my car outdoors, and so the stock steering wheel was starting to show its age and break down slightly.

2) I used to own a 1999 Honda Civic Si, and I always loved the feel of the leather wrapped steering wheel and gear shift **** that came on that model vehicle. Unfortunately the 7<sup>th</sup> generation Si lacked this feature, but a similar wheel was a standard feature on 2004-2005 EX Special Edition Civics.

3) So basically while my car certainly does not have my old Si’s sporty performance, I wanted to replace the steering wheel with one that harkened back to that car’s nicer interior pieces.

So with that out of the way, now let’s get to the issue with this kind of swap. Basically Honda decided to totally redesign the steering wheel in US derived civics as part of their mid cycle refresh, and unfortunately for me, due in part to the fact that the two wheels are so similar in appearance, I did not realize this until after the fact. Appearances aside, the wheels themselves are actually very different both on a mechanical and structural level. For example 01-03 civic steering wheels have a set of free floating internal weights that seem to be designed to act as vibration dampeners. Additionally the internal structure has been completely changed as well, as have the dimensions of the airbag itself (more on this in a moment).

Now part of the reason that I did not realize this change is because Honda uses the same short hand designation for both wheels it seems “nh167l”. However if you look at the actual part number assigned to both you will see that they are in fact slightly different. The 2001-2003 models use a 78501-S5A-N61ZA as opposed to the 78501-S5D-J71ZA found on 2004-2005 vintage vehicles. Given that the surface used on the wheel itself is different on the two models you may just assume that this difference is purely related to that fact, but as I alluded to before, there are in fact some differences to their overall structure. (I will point out that the newer steering wheel is actually less expensive than the older one, so part of me wonders if some of these changes were made as part of a cost cutting effort.)
Basically the external form factor of the air bag in the 04-05 Civics (Part number 06770-S5A-A10ZA) is slightly larger than the one used in 01-04 models (06770-S5A-A80ZA). While this change may be due to the fact that Honda elected to completely redesign the wheel mounted cruise controls, it does lead to a situation where earlier generation airbags WILL FIT a 04-05 steering wheel, but there is a noticeable gap on all sides; the worst of which is on the lower portion of the wheel itself. Now given that the airbags themselves are probably the same internally, you could possibly get away with carefully swapping the covers of the two units. However, for my purposes I just elected to purchase a second hand airbag from a 2005 model to better match the wheel itself. While this is obviously not the most cost effective solution (an airbag from a salvage yard through Automotix cost me $133), for the sake of safety this was the approach I was more comfortable using.

So to sum up my rather lengthy post: yes, you can use a steering wheel from a 04-05 civic in a 01-03 vehicle. However, while your old airbag will fit, it will not look stock unless you switch the airbag or airbag cover as well.

Hope this helps, and a special shout out to Spudz904 for his S2000 steering wheel swap tutorial; which made this whole process much easier for me. (You can read his post: here.)

2005 Steering Wheel Parts Diagram

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Name: Hondaonlinestore2005civicsteeringwheelsrsparts-MozillaFirefox_2013-09-18_10-21-43.jpg
Views: 1151
Size: 62.1 KB

2003 Steering Wheel Parts Diagram

Name: Hondaonlinestore2003civicsteeringwheelsrsparts-MozillaFirefox_2013-09-18_10-24-36.jpg
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Name: Hondaonlinestore2003civicsteeringwheelsrsparts-MozillaFirefox_2013-09-18_10-24-36.jpg
Views: 970
Size: 68.6 KB

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Sep 18, 2013

CraigW

35+ Years Driving Japanese Autos

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Re: Swapping a 04-05 Steering Wheel into a 01-03 Vehicle

Good info,

nh167l is the color iirc.

Sep 18, 2013

andrewnprice

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Re: Swapping a 04-05 Steering Wheel into a 01-03 Vehicle

Just so everyone can see what I am talking about in terms of gap size, I took some photos to show how the air bag looks mounted to the wheel this afternoon.

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