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Speedster From VW Bug

G GuitarsWeB
Wanted to pass my experience on to all. I have a CMC speedster. I am the third owner, from a New York built car. I was told the original car was a 1973 VW. My steering went out, broke at the steering column gear box connector. When makeing a speedster, from a VW Bug, the steering gear box MUST be realigned to the NEW steering column angle. Then, you must readjust the tow-in and wheel alignment. Apparently, this was not done on my car. All the builder did was bend the lower steering column section to match the original angle of the steering box. Over the years of turning the wheel, this put extra force on the coupling and it finally broke. I did notice the car was always hard to turn, especially right turns. You can remove the left wheel and take a look at the coupling and how things line up. This happened in St. George, Utah, 600 miles from my Arizona home. Chirco, in Tucson, fixed the steering properly last week and it drives like a dream now. Hope this might be of some help to anyone building a project car.
Paul McGuffin, Green Valley, Arizona

1957 CMC(Speedster)

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G GuitarsWeB
Wanted to pass my experience on to all. I have a CMC speedster. I am the third owner, from a New York built car. I was told the original car was a 1973 VW. My steering went out, broke at the steering column gear box connector. When makeing a speedster, from a VW Bug, the steering gear box MUST be realigned to the NEW steering column angle. Then, you must readjust the tow-in and wheel alignment. Apparently, this was not done on my car. All the builder did was bend the lower steering column section to match the original angle of the steering box. Over the years of turning the wheel, this put extra force on the coupling and it finally broke. I did notice the car was always hard to turn, especially right turns. You can remove the left wheel and take a look at the coupling and how things line up. This happened in St. George, Utah, 600 miles from my Arizona home. Chirco, in Tucson, fixed the steering properly last week and it drives like a dream now. Hope this might be of some help to anyone building a project car.
Paul McGuffin, Green Valley, Arizona
Alan MerklinAlan MerklinDrclock - Elkins, West Virginia Supporting Member

The coupler was newly installed by me.
Prior to installing the column, I inspected the used steering shaft/column and the crush collar, they did't show any indication of wear.
However, after it did break, I was curious as to the reason for the failure... sanded the newer paint off as well as the old factory base paint only to discover hair line cracks from fatigue.
In future builds they will get stripped bare for inspection
FM Former Member
Paul, this is a discussion some of the Speedster owners in the UK have had. Most replica here are Chesils and everyone I have seen has some degree of mis-alignment. I suppose that one of the reaons the coupler is there is to take up a certain degree of misalignment. However if the misalignment is severe it is obvious that over a period of time fatigue and eventual breakage might occur. One of the suggested solutions is to replace the coupler with a universal joint. I have no idea what impact that would have on steering play or feel.

I wonder whether anyone has tried this approach

Rob Jones
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