is there a trick to removing the steering wheel?
 

I looked in the Bentley book and it looks pretty straightforward. Wayne's 101 Project site talks about using "The Club" anti-theft device to hold the wheel while you tighten/loosen the 24mm nut.

Is this really necessary? The torque spec is 34 ft-lb. How have people been removing the wheel? I don't want to use the steering stops to hold the wheel against the wrench torque.

My experience is that you just hold the wheel to remove and install the nut... It's easy.

Mine came off easy enough when I did the 4 Stalk upgrade with OBC....be sure you mark where it goes so you can get back in the same position......also as always with airbags...careful. Follow the usual safety procedures and you should be fine.

I removed mine recently.

disconnect the battery and let it sit 10 minutes so the airbag circuit is discharged

remove the torx screws holding the airbag from the back of the steering wheel

remove the wiring from the inside of the steering wheel

Mark the position of the steering wheel nut so you can tighten it back to its original position plus a little bit. Mark the steering wheel position to the steering shaft so you get the splines lined up. A sharpie works well for marking. Leave the shaft bolt on a couple of turns when pulling off the wheel so it doesn't hit you in the chest.

That was about it for me.

Removing the torx bolts can be a pain if you don't have the right tool, but everything else is easy.

This may seem obvious, but remember to remove the electrical connectors before you pull the wheel off or you could damage the clock spring.

Too true Kevin
 

The procedure I used was disconnect the battery (Remember to leave the hood up !) and let set 15 minutes...then turn on the emergency flashers and the last if the energy in the system would be used up.....it served me well.

And one more tip, don't start the car with the airbag removed, I wouldn't even hook the battery back up. You can set the airbag light, and it does not go off by just disconnecting the battery, it has to be reset with something along the lines of a durametric or the dealer.