Apr 242012
 

I was surprised how rusty the clutch pedal and pedal springs were seeing it’s inside the car and underneath the aluminium pedalbox housing. I’m assuming this must have been as a result of condensation. Once it’s complete I’ll give the inside a covering of ACF50 to give it some protection. There’s nothing worth noting on the dismantling as the pedals simply rotate on a shaft through the pedalbox.

The pedalbox was renovated before I’d come across the company that ultrasonically cleans alloy components, so it was shotblasted and then coated with a lacquer product sold by Eastwood to stop surface oxidisation. The pedal arm, foot pads and springs were also shot blasted and then powder coated.

The rebuild was fiddly mainly because the pedal springs are quite strong so it’s difficult to align everything while pushing the shaft into position. The final washer had a tendency to drop out at the final moment! It made sense to cover the shaft and mating surfaces in plenty of grease.

I was surprised that the brake light switch is actually part of the hydraulic system, actuated by hydraulic pressure when the brake pedal is pressed. Some have reported problems with the response of this switch and have therefore either replaced it or supplemented it with a mechanical microswitch operated by the brake pedal.

While the car is apart and the looms are being put in place, it makes sense to install both a hydraulic switch and a microswitch in parallel, to build in redundancy. All it would require would be to fabricate a bracket to hold a microswitch in the pedalbox housing. I’ll do this as part of the final electric fitting when the lights are installed.