New Transmission  19                 March  2012

March. 2nd.

With the transmission installed and almost finished it's now time to start on the clutch and brake pedals...finally. What I mean here is that I ordered some parts from Total Coast Involved (TCI) about a month ago and they arrived late...very late to be exact. I called TCI after the two week lead time they quoted me and started asking questions about my order. I was passed from one person to the next a couple of times till I ended up with someone's voicemail. A few days later I called them back and got the same treatment as the first time (voicemail again) so I hung up and called them right back. After talking to someone that could give me some kind of a straight answer I was told that they were waiting for the master cylinder kit to arrive. I wondered about that because after getting off the phone I checked with Jeg's and Summit Racing and they both had the very same master cylinder kits (as I shake my head back and forth).

After about a month, the parts arrived which is the good news. The bad news is some parts were not in the box and I needed them. Back on the phone I was bounced around again till I talked with someone in manufacturing. He asked me a few questions and after a minute or two, he thought I had the wrong parts. Great! He asked if I could take a picture of the pedal assembly and email it to him so he could look at it. I told him that they should have a part number of what they shipped me and to check that instead. One thing lead to another and after another minute he thought I had the right parts after all (without checking part numbers). He also told me that it would take a day or two to make them because they were special, but I wanted to make sure I wasn't going to be charged for them because they were part of the original order. That's when he said "let me transfer you". Oh know....the first thought I had was, here we go again.

It was a much better experience this time because there would be no charge and with the guy in manufacturing living in Beaumont, (neighboring town) he could bring them home and then meet up with me saving me shipping costs. Speaking of shipping costs, the original box that was sent to me was a separate charge on my credit card which I found out about when I looked at my back statement a few days later. Now you would think they would have called me to say there was going to be this extra charge but I guess that would be to much work. Heck if I know what's up with that but it pissed me off (as you can tell) so beware if you order something from Total Coasts Involved and to make sure you find out all the hidden costs before you order anything.

Here are the parts that came in the first box which are a bracket, clutch and brake pedal assembly (which are both special for their chassis) and a master cylinder kit. The bracket is to mount your vacuum assist for the power brakes and the large cutout is for a clutch pedal rod to pass through. Now this bracket measures a little longer than the one in the car so I don't know if I'll use it or not yet. Once the pedals are mounted is when that be decided.
 

 

 
The pedal assembly came with two brackets and a long 1/2" bolt and lock nut. These pedals are longer than my old one, which I'll explain a little later but the one thing that I also noticed is that they're made with less material compared to my old one. I would have a hard time trying to bend my old one and hope these will be the same.
 

 

 
This hydraulic master cylinder kit is made by Wilwood and should work pretty good. It has a 3/4" bore and you can use it a couple of different ways which I'll go into when the time comes.
 

 

 
Here are the parts that weren't in the box that I received from one of the workers at TCI. The bent rod is for the clutch pedal which passes through the new bracket that you saw earlier. It also comes with a left-hand rod end and the other end goes to the master cylinders threaded rod which has a normal right-hand thread. The three pieces on the top are called bungs and the top left one has a 1/2-20 thread through it which gets welded to the chassis. It's used on the other end of the long bolt that runs through the pedal assembly which will hold them in place once it's welded. The two smaller bungs have 3/8" threads in them and will be again be welded to the chassis to attach the new master cylinder.

The guy that delivered them to me told that they had trouble with the bent rod and it had to be made a couple of times before they got it right. That explains why both ends weren't cleaned up nice as the both had rough saw cut finishes on them. And if you look close you can see the two smaller bungs still have material that needs to be removed from the parting-off operation when they made them. This is really no big deal but does say something about the company when you see this kind of work leaving their place.

Now that I have all the parts for the pedals, it's time to do some measuring and find out where to make some cuts.
 

 

 
This picture has a few things going on so let's break it down (no pun intended). I separated my new pedals because I needed to do some measuring. After thinking about it for a few minutes, I placed my new one and my old one together to get some accurate dimensions. The first thing you'll notice is how much longer the new pedal is compared to my old one. The difference between the two is 2.500" which means the mounting point will have to be moved that same amount. If you look close you can see I wrote down some dimensions to work with later.

To the right of the pedals you'll see one of the two brackets that I received (the other has a long 1/2" bolt running through it). After looking at them, they need to be mounted at a right-angle to the chassis. The notch is where they would locate which would makes it easy. Now that's a good way to hang some pedals but after doing a lot of thinking and measuring, I don't think they will be used. The reason is because of how much clearance that I would need compared to how much I have to work with. If I used these brackets I would need about 5.500" of locating surface to make that happen with these two brackets getting welded on each end of that surface. But with my X member running at an angle that would mean I would have to place them so far back to gain enough room that my 2.500" dimension would end up somewhere near 3.500" or more. I'll make this a easier to understand a little later.
 

 

 
Notice that the pedals are sitting on some blocks. These blocks allowed the pedals to sit the same so I can get some accurate measurements. Also notice that I have some 3/8" bolts where the rod-ends get fastened. If you were to look straight down on the bolts from above, they are both lined up with each other. Once I had them in this position and then placing a straightedge across the threaded hole of the other end of my old pedal, I was able to measure the difference between the two which is on that paper. Just a quick way to get a dimension.
 

 

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