Gas Pedal

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Major System Category: Fuel System
Task: Install the gas pedal
Parts: Donor gas pedal (may be labeled fly by wire throttle)
Prerequisite Tasks: Install the pedal box
Additional Costs: N/A
Time Requirement: 2 hours
Date Started: July 27, 2912
Date Completed: July 27, 2012
The gas pedal is attached by two rivnuts or bolts to the chassis frame where the steering column comes through. I'm not really enamored with the rivnut approach, but I understand that it is expedient if you plan to change gas pedals somewhere down the line. I've never found the need to change a gas pedal in any car I've owned.

This is the fly-by-wire pedal from the donor corvette.

The kit includes to hex head bolts to screw into the rivnuts. I'm not really sure why the hex head bolts were chosen. It is a real pain to get an hex wrench that far into the driver side foot box. I departed from the manual and went with 1/4 inch bolts and nuts. This is not without a certain level of frustration. I found that I could run the top bolt through and clamp it to the chassis. This allowed me to get my hand back there with tape wrapped on fingers (so the nut and washer stuck to the tape) and get the nut and washer on the stud. After that it was just a matter of using a long extension on a ratchet and open end wrench to tighten things down.

Top bolt. Orientation from bottom to top is  front to back.

The bottom bolt is harder to see.

Consideration: After you drill through the chassis for the two holes that secure the gas pedal, you should debur the back side.

Finished product. I still need to get the steering column taken care of. However, I think it is a blessing in disguise that I ran into problems, because these jobs jave been easier to complete without the steering column being attached.

Consideration: Make sure the brake pedal can move without interference from the gas pedal. It is real easy to make a mistake here. There is not a lot of room for error.

Pedal Box and Master Cylinders

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Major System Category: Brakes & Suspension
Task: Install pedal box, then master cylinders
Parts:

• Master Cylinders (3)
• Pedal Box

Prerequisite Tasks: Driver's side Foot Box
Additional Costs: N/A
Time Requirement: 4 - 6 hours
Date Started: July 23, 2012
Date Completed: July 25, 2012
This task would have gone much smoother had I not broken the rivet nut tool on the second rivet nut. It took a good hour to fix the tool.

My crack team of helpers showed up to turn bolts.

Mounting the pedal box is pretty straight forward. There are two holes you need to drill upwards into the frame. The easiest way to do this is to lay down inside the frame and push upwards on the drill. Make sure you wear gloves and safety glasses, because metal shavings are going to swirl around. On the hole closest to the front, a full size drill is not going to fit very well. I used a smaller cordless drill for this hole.

Rivet nuts installed. Orientation looking up from inside the driver side foot box at the outside set of rivet nuts.

Consideration: To facilitate bolting the pedal box into place, I connected one of the six studs for the master cylinders to stabilize the pedal box. This way I could concentrate on getting things connected underneath.

Trim an inch off the push rod. This cylinder is prepped.

Master cylinder clamped down and ready to be cut.

I used the die grinder and the diamond cutting wheel to trim the master cylinder push rods. You won't miss the extra length, but I did notice that the photo in the manual shows a jam nut on the push rods. My kit doesn't have a nut (and you will want one to facilitate threading the push rods into the pedals). 

Secured the pedal box in order to facilitate bolting the pedal box in place. Orientation: Looking from the front of the car  towards the driver's side cockpit.

Consideration: The master cylinders connect to a top and bottom stud.  Thread the nut and washer on the top stud before doing too much on the bottom; otherwise, you will not have space to get the nut on the top stud.

The master cylinders come with dust covers. 

Once the master cylinders are in place, the push rods need to be mated to the pedals. The brake gets two push rods and the clutch gets one. I ran a nut up and down the threads of each push rod to make sure they all worked (since they were cut down earlier). I used a needle nose pliers to get enough grip on the push rods to turn the push rods so they threaded into the back of the pedals.

Final product! Pedal box and master cylinders installed.

The last thing to do is install the tanks. My kit included two tanks. Based on the photo in the build manual, I chose the smaller tank to mount. For some reason Wilwood supplies really soft metal and chintzy clamps to secure the tanks to the cylinders. The space here is really tight. I tried fitting a screw driver into the slotted head, but I could not get a decent purchase. I ended up using a small 10mm wrench to tighten things down.