HUM24H
Godspeed
Welcome all to my thread on how to change the Wheel Rim on the Thrustmaster 458 GTE Wheel.
To answer the question of why? The reason why I have done this is because even though I was happy with the stock wheel rim Thrustmaster chose to use on the 458 GTE Wheel, it was quite small at around 280mm and I didn't like the rubber feel all that much. So I decided to change it, now in my mind I already knew how to DIY it to make it accept a real car wheel with a 70mm Bolt Pattern but then when I decided to look on Sim Racing Hardware's Website I found that they had already made what I wanted which made the process really easy.
Moving swiftly onwards, the wheel I decided to buy was the Sparco P104. The reason why I decided to buy this wheel is because firstly it was within my budget of £100.00 coming in at £94.00 from Demon Tweaks and also it's a D Shaped Wheel Rim which I prefer. The four buttons you see on the front are not wired up and I have removed them as they didn't allow me to fit the wheel to the plate.
Now that we have our new wheel which we are going to fit to the 458 GTE Wheel Plate, we now need the hardware piece that will help us achieve that. The piece is from the guys over at Sim Racing Hardware and will set you back £24.95 with shipping costing £4.95 (UK Delivery), this takes the 60mm/65mm Bolt Pattern of the Thrustmaster Wheel and allows you to bolt a standard 70mm Bolt Pattern Wheel to it. This also comes with mounting hardware, 3 Long and 3 Small allen head screws.
Right let's get unscrewing, we firstly need to remove the original wheel rim off the Thrustmaster 458 GTE. To do this you need to remove the 6 allen head screws on the front of the wheel rim, the screws at 12, 4 & 7 O'Clock are short screws and the screws at 2, 6 & 10 O'Clock are long screws. Also there are two small cross head screws on the back of the wheel plate located beneath the shifter paddles, you should see a hole in the shifter paddles which will allow you to get cross head screw driver into to remove the screws. Also be careful when removing the wheel plate from the wheel rim as the D-Pad will come off, so just make sure not to lose it.
Once the wheel plate is removed you now need to place the adapter onto the wheel, the holes that are counter sunk will need to go over the holes at 2, 6 & 10 O'Clock on the wheel because as I have mentioned these are where the longer screws go through and then once you screw that in place using the longer screws, you can now take your wheel rim and using the smaller screws attach the wheel rim to the adapter.
Now we are done, you should now have a complete wheel! There are some drawbacks to doing this, as there are with any DIY/Mod we do. The first is that if you go for a wheel this size (310mm) the shifter paddles are further inwards and further back which means if you have small hands then you may find it difficult to use the paddles. Secondly the buttons on the wheel plate, the outer red buttons are usable but the inner lilght blue buttons are some what hidden under the wheel rim which does make it slightly difficult to use them.
Overall though I knew what the drawbacks would be and none of them affected me as I have fairly large hands and I hardly use the light blue buttons on the wheel plate. This Sparco wheel feels fantastic and having a wheel this size makes everything much more comfortable for me. So I would recommend this to anyone who is looking to do this, also if I ever change to a Fanatec or Leo Bodnar Sim Steering then I can just take my Sparco Wheel at fit it to those Steering Wheel Systems with no modding or hassle.
I hope you have enjoyed this post and been inspired to do something different, Thank you! And...
Godspeed!
To answer the question of why? The reason why I have done this is because even though I was happy with the stock wheel rim Thrustmaster chose to use on the 458 GTE Wheel, it was quite small at around 280mm and I didn't like the rubber feel all that much. So I decided to change it, now in my mind I already knew how to DIY it to make it accept a real car wheel with a 70mm Bolt Pattern but then when I decided to look on Sim Racing Hardware's Website I found that they had already made what I wanted which made the process really easy.
Moving swiftly onwards, the wheel I decided to buy was the Sparco P104. The reason why I decided to buy this wheel is because firstly it was within my budget of £100.00 coming in at £94.00 from Demon Tweaks and also it's a D Shaped Wheel Rim which I prefer. The four buttons you see on the front are not wired up and I have removed them as they didn't allow me to fit the wheel to the plate.
Now that we have our new wheel which we are going to fit to the 458 GTE Wheel Plate, we now need the hardware piece that will help us achieve that. The piece is from the guys over at Sim Racing Hardware and will set you back £24.95 with shipping costing £4.95 (UK Delivery), this takes the 60mm/65mm Bolt Pattern of the Thrustmaster Wheel and allows you to bolt a standard 70mm Bolt Pattern Wheel to it. This also comes with mounting hardware, 3 Long and 3 Small allen head screws.
Right let's get unscrewing, we firstly need to remove the original wheel rim off the Thrustmaster 458 GTE. To do this you need to remove the 6 allen head screws on the front of the wheel rim, the screws at 12, 4 & 7 O'Clock are short screws and the screws at 2, 6 & 10 O'Clock are long screws. Also there are two small cross head screws on the back of the wheel plate located beneath the shifter paddles, you should see a hole in the shifter paddles which will allow you to get cross head screw driver into to remove the screws. Also be careful when removing the wheel plate from the wheel rim as the D-Pad will come off, so just make sure not to lose it.
Once the wheel plate is removed you now need to place the adapter onto the wheel, the holes that are counter sunk will need to go over the holes at 2, 6 & 10 O'Clock on the wheel because as I have mentioned these are where the longer screws go through and then once you screw that in place using the longer screws, you can now take your wheel rim and using the smaller screws attach the wheel rim to the adapter.
Now we are done, you should now have a complete wheel! There are some drawbacks to doing this, as there are with any DIY/Mod we do. The first is that if you go for a wheel this size (310mm) the shifter paddles are further inwards and further back which means if you have small hands then you may find it difficult to use the paddles. Secondly the buttons on the wheel plate, the outer red buttons are usable but the inner lilght blue buttons are some what hidden under the wheel rim which does make it slightly difficult to use them.
Overall though I knew what the drawbacks would be and none of them affected me as I have fairly large hands and I hardly use the light blue buttons on the wheel plate. This Sparco wheel feels fantastic and having a wheel this size makes everything much more comfortable for me. So I would recommend this to anyone who is looking to do this, also if I ever change to a Fanatec or Leo Bodnar Sim Steering then I can just take my Sparco Wheel at fit it to those Steering Wheel Systems with no modding or hassle.
I hope you have enjoyed this post and been inspired to do something different, Thank you! And...
Godspeed!
