Beast!

 

I installed a sporty three spoke steering wheel from the Toyota Matrix as the oem one looks like crap. Shout out to Yotarip for the awesome idea as he is running it in two of his cars.
I removed the air bag at the pick and pull because they'd charge an arm for it. I picked up a can of expanding foam filler from Home Depot to fill the wheel and give it some rigidness.

I placed a piece of cardboard over the hole in the back where the airbag was so the foam would expand tightly into all the gaps inside the steering wheel center piece. Came out awesome.

The foam is super sticky so wear gloves and be careful. The finish product looks and feels great plus it's light as a feather. With one can of foam you could do a dozen or more steering wheels so it doesn't take much to get the job done.

 

I recently acquired a complete electric steering column assembly from a Toyota Yaris.

So due to my lack of love for Toyota/Lexus leaking power steering pump I'll be retrofitting electric steering in the truck. Yes this will take a bit more effort that an o-ring but it's cooler. I'm hoping to be the first with this mod on one of these old trucks. It's definitely tedious work but Yotarip and I are 80% complete with it.

 

That should be fun...

 

Definitely looking forward to that write up.

I thought of doing the same steering wheel swap that you did, but pulling from a Scion, but decided against it unless I could badge my truck all over as a scion. I had a Scion 6-disc cd player already to go, but found that all the scion badges looked a little too big for my grill, so I abandoned the idea. I like the Matrix steering wheel, though. Looks good!

 

A write-up oh gosh lol. I will definitely try my best but I can promise you this was a first time doing this for Yotarip and I. I will supply as much information as I can but this was definitely a fly buy the seat of our pants on taking. It just happened outta nowhere almost. I hope to at least show it can be done and maybe some master fabricator will figure out a easy way to get it done.

 

I saw online somewhere, a guy made an inline electric power steering mod to a manual steering car. Added a motor just above the pedals, couple wires, called it a day.

edit:

 

With some cars it's easier than others. Ive seen a few conversions that looked pretty simple. With his truck I wanted to keep tilt, and stay stock from the intermediate shaft down so I could easily return to stock. I also wanted to keep the electric motor as far as possible from the pedals and we will be posting pictures today.

 

Really been trying to go over everything that went into retrofitting the electric steering and it's to complexed. So many steps, measuring cutting, measuring again, welding and measure more. We successfully installed it in the truck but a write-up would be impossible. It's a completely one-off swap that would be different for each builder. I'm definitely happy with the results but this is a Jedi level job.



The electric motor was clocked towards the HVAC area to fit the best. The far left vent is no longer functional due to interference with piping and electric motor but I plan to install a wideband gauge there now.


Everything clears even though the parking brake made things tight but It all went back together and looks stock.

 

My body is still sore from from putting in work on this setup. It's gonna be well worth it though.

 

Man I couldn't do this without you bro. Can't wait til we can finally get out here and turn some heads.

 

This... Is one of the coolest swaps/add-ons I've seen on this site. Excellent job man.

 

Thanks dude, we literally decided on the fly to add electric steering. We were so taken by the idea of it that we were almost done with the conversion and realized we hadn't taken a single picture. It was a big job but it's something we're proud of.

 

I'm disappointed that I don't have Jedi level skills to pull this off.

Nice work though!

 

We did my conversion with me keeping the tilt option and this made it a bit more difficult. I am thinking about doing it again with a none tilt steering column to do a write-up with, then sell it at a small profit. I'd be a win win I think.

 

The thought did cross my mind that the tilt may have made this more difficult. I was just excited that there may be an option for power steering that would be a little more plentiful at the wrecking lot than pickups. Though come to think of it I haven't seen that many Yarises either.

 

Yea I definitely felt like keeping tilt was a major part of the complexity. Doing a conversion without tilt I believe would take less than half the effort. The Prius also has the same electric motor. I was able to buy used parts and do the swap for under $100 with the help of Yotarip.

 

Really diggin' the electric power steering. I'll have to look into that myself. What year of Yaris did you get that one from?

 

I think it was either an 03 or 04. We really sliced and spliced the yaris and pickup columns to combine them in order to keep the truck's tilt steering and stock plastic covering. I'd really recommend anyone doing this to use as much of the Yaris steering column as possible. Just cut the mounts off the truck column and weld it to the yaris column. Then figure out how to make the combination switches work. Wiring up the steering system is very easy. Just 12 volts , ground and 12 volt ignition signal to wake it up. It was weird to feel the powersteering kick in while turning the wheel in total silence (engine was off).

Plan to spend alot of time in the toyota section of the junkyard looking for steering shafts and u-joints to make it work. It'll take time but there is a combination that will work.

 

Thanks bud, I'm sure I can figure it out. I don't like the missing left most vent, but I love the idea of electric power steering.

Does it stick out that much? Also doesn't the steering wheel mentioned above (Matrix) fit on it or is it a different bolt pattern? I actually have one off of a Celica (same wheel) and I planned on putting it on my truck.

Also I would recommend using a relay to power the power steering.