Hallelujah! I broke the steering nut loose!
 

And I sliced the dickens out of my thumb in the process, but I don't care because I finally broke one of those nuts. I used every trick in the book - braced the steering wheel with wood, heated the nut, used a breaker bar with a two-foot pipe attached, and constant steady pressure.

I'll take some pics tomorrow of the AMG steering wheel that I got from Bruce Mendel.

How about posting a photo of your thumb? I want to know if this AMG stuff is really worth it.

thats crazy.. I removed a score of steering wheels from Japanese and American cars with nothing more than a 30 inch breaker bar and locking the wheel with the steering lock..

These Mercedes setups must be something else

Germans are SERIOUS about not wanting the wheel to come off while you are driving :rolleyes:

My BMW was the same way and you HAVE to remove the wheel to get the instrument cluster out...

Well, I didn't want to use the steering wheel lock as leverage for fear of breaking it. Hindsight included, I'm glad I didn't.

Here's the original AMG wheel. A little education here: the Bill of Sale shows an AMG steering wheel sold and installed on this car, but the steering wheel looks like the normal MB variety. I learned, however, that AMG had two tiers of steering wheels - the Tier 1 wheel was the original MB wheel redone with leather (like my original wheel), and the Tier 2 wheel was the normal AMG wheel we all think about.

Original Tier 1 AMG wheel:
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h1...G/IMG_0444.jpg

My replacement Tier 2 AMG wheel:
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h1...G/IMG_1060.jpg