New Transmission  23                 March  2012

If you're new to TIG (Tungsten Inert Gas) welding I'll give you the basic's, you use both hands and one foot. One hand is for your torch, the other is to feed in filler rod and your foot is to control how much heat you get. The foot pedal is just a rheostat, the more you push it down, the more heat you get.

Now normally you'd be sitting while you weld which makes it much easier but when your in hard to reach area (like under a car) you have to get creative. By placing my foot pedal against my floor jack I'm able to lay down and use it without the pedal moving. I've been in many different positions using my foot pedal without using my foot before. For example, I've used my hip, elbow, side of my head, knee and I even had someone else push it down for me once. I'd let them know to give it more heat or to back off a little while I'm welding but that's only in rare case's because I'm by myself most of the time. Whatever it takes to get the job done you know!
 

 

 

It's not pretty but here's the piece welded in place along with the end cap too. If you're wondering if I welded the top side of this bracket the answer is no. I had no way of getting to it but that was the plan all along. I figure with weld on three out of the four sides it should be plenty strong.
 

 

 

The next item to be welded is the bracket that will hold the 1/2" bolt for my pedals. I checked the original one and it was square to the plate the master cylinder was mounted on so I did the same for the new one. My mag base came in handy again to hold the bracket square while I lined it up and then tacked it in place.
 

 

 

After tack welding two spots on either side, I rechecked it with my square again to make sure it was still lined up. Everything was good to go so I nailed it in place on both sides. Once things cooled down I wanted to see how the pedals fit before I welded the bung in place. The bung will go right under the new cross piece where the paint has been removed.

Once I had the brake pedal in place I noticed something on the inside of the car that didn't look right. Turns out the brake pedal was right about where my old one was which means there wouldn't be enough room for the clutch pedal. Sounds like I've got some more work to do. And to add to the mater I also found out that the clutch pedal was going to hit the frame rail which means....even more work (one of these days I'm gonna catch a break). Looks like it's time to get the pedals sorted out before I go any farther (damn...it figures)!!
 

 

 

Here is where the brake pedal ended up being, which is right where my other one was. This won't do because there isn't enough room to the left of it for another pedal so I've got some decisions to make. The first thing that came to mind is if the new brake pedal was moved over to the right a little, how much is enough? And if I do move it over I won't have any room for my throttle pedal.

After thinking about it for awhile, I decided to move my gas pedal over to see how that looked first. The nice thing about this Lokar pedal is that you can reverse it without to much hassle. By removing it from the firewall first, there is a set screw on the back which enables you to remove the pedal. After it was out of the way I flipped the unit over backwards and then put the pedal back on. The shaft has splines on it that allows you to adjust it just about anywhere you'd like and after a few minutes I had 1 1/4" difference. Notice that line in the carpet for reference here. 
 

 

 

Now look at the reference line and you can see the pedal is a little closer to it, which is the good news. The bad news is that I'll have to figure out another way of activating my throttle linkage because it doesn't line up anymore. Notice the small 10-32 bolt that I'm using to get an idea of what I can come up with in the future. Heck you never know I might just use something like this if it works. Or I could drill another set of holes in the firewall to use the throttle in this location but If I did drill more holes, what would I do about the other two because they would be ugly? I'm not sure just yet but it's another thing for me to think about.

I made some pedal pads out of cardboard and taped them in place. I wanted to see how much room I was dealing with now that the bracket was welded in place and with the brake pedal installed. The size of the cardboard pads are the same as my original pad was, which I'm using as a starting point. The distance between the two pads are 5.300" which is exactly how the pedals came.

As you can see there's not much room with the pedals like this and those pads are a little large too. I would like them to the right a little more which would give me more room. And for the pads to be smaller as well.
 

 

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