A suggestion that each and every speedster owner check the steering shaft condition, the concern is VW factory weld at the "crush cage"on the column shaft, this is located where the shaft exits forward portion of the firewall on your speedster.
Carfully inspect with a good light source, checking for hairline cracks and or rust. Not only restricted to a good number of the CMC/FiberFab speedters were home built and may have utlized a used steering column assembly.
Last summer I had a column crush cage snap away clean at a factory weld point from the steering shaft! Luckly this happened as I was loading the speedster on a car trailer and that was with minimal radial pressure applied to the shaft. A detailed inspection found that the shaft had cracked sometime ago ( this could have been caused by an impact etc. while installed in the original donor VW Type I Beetle or caused by old age wear. The age of the crack was indicated by rust within the cracked area itself. The crack slowly increased in length by the constant twisting of the steering shaft during normal driving and gave way on the final 20% of the then still solid metal area of the steering crush cage area.
The alarming thing is that there was no indications of a problem (excessive play etc)and just prior to that both myself and my wife had the speedster up to some serious speed out on the highway.
Please......... take the time to pull the left front wheel and do a detailed inspection....Then,continue this inspection on the entire car...brakes,suspension,wheels,tires etc.
Yes a bit time consuming however, you'll feel confident in knowing that your Speedster is in top notch roadworthy condition!
Be Safe!
Alan M.
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