Nomar116

My clutch pedal is rattling when I take my foot off of it. I crawled under there and took a look... and what I saw was scccary to remove. It was evident there is about 1/4" of play in the pedal, maybe a worn out spring? Am I right to assume you have to pull the dash to get this thing out? Sounds like a lot of work to quite up a shaky pedal...

Rich N.

PM sent.

Grinchia

Even with the dash removed, removing that sucker was one of, if not THE biggest PITA job I have done on this car, and that is saying something But it is very satisfying to have a nice tight pedal assembly when you are done. In my case the nylon shaft bushings had disappeared somewhere along the way, and the shaft itself was badly worn. I replaced it with a beefier shaft, added some bronze sleeve bearings, a new spring, some paint, and now it's wonderful.

Nomar116

Sigh... that's what I was expecting... sounds like I'll be putting this one on the back burner until the dash has to come off for some other reasons.

Dustup7T2

It's true that there are easier things to get to in the car. A loose pedal setup was one of couple-dozen issues I dealt with when I made the decision to go for broke and get serious about a proper fix.









Read your other post with the linkage issues your experiencing. Before GordonM went hydraulic, he used the SpeedDirect setup I also selected for mine. For old-school mechanical linkage, mine is buttery smooth now.



Edit: oops, my bad on ID of prev post with linkage prob. It was another CF member that Gordonm was helping out. Sorry for confusion.

Tim_Ko

Hey Grinchia,
Mine is out of the car at the moment. Where did you get the bronze sleeve bushings? Who sells those?

68/70Vette

To remove the clutch/brake housing, it's a whole lot easier with the steering column removed. Removing the column is not all that hard. I removed the housing for my repair.

My clutch pedal lever arm had a badly worn clutch rod pivot stud. It was about 25% gone. I bought a new clutch pedal rod. The clutch/brake shaft is an integral part of the clutch pedal lever arm.

I used my original white nylon bushings. They were still OK. I bought repro bushings (black plastic??). One of them tore. My opinion is that the repro black plastic bushings are of poor quality.

The clutch/brake shaft has a spring on it. However the spring only torques the brake pedal lever arm. It has no effect on the clutch. If you've got a floppy clutch pedal lever arm, first check out the clutch rod attach points.

Also, look at where the clutch rod mates to the Z bar. The pivot piece on the clutch rod at this mating point was very worn on my 70 . I had to replace it. If it's worn it'll also make for a floppy clutch pedal. Lets hope that wearing at both ends of the clutch rod are the cause of your problem. If you've worn out the clutch/brake housing shaft mounting holes, this is more difficult to repair imo.

I'd also like to know more about the bronze bushings.

Nomar116

Boy, this is hard to visualize without ever having had the thing out. Fist off, if I pull the steering column can the assembly be removed without pulling the dash?? I will be replacing the column with a tilt/tele eventually and could make this combine the jobs.

As for the clutch rod and Z bar... is the clutch rod the one that attaches midway up the clutch pedal and runs forward through the firewall? Where is the Z bar? I assumed it was the spring that had gone bad giving me a rattling clutch but if that has no effect, maybe I can find the problem elsewhere. WITHOUT pulling this whole assembly?? One can hope.

Grinchia

I went scavenging at the local Ace Hardware, and found the bushings I wante. I also bought a big grade 8 bolt and cut it to make a new 3/4" shaft for the pedals to mount to. See Pictures of my old shaft with wear, new shaft, and assorted bushings:











I had to drill some larger holes for the bigger shaft, press in the collared bushings, and install a shaft collar with setscrew on the free end of the shaft. It's not perfect but overall it made a TREMENDOUS improvement over what I had in there. If you are going to the trouble to take that sucker out, fix it up RIGHT before you put it back in

redvetracr

seems like you went through alot of work to replace four $1 bushings...

Grinchia

If you look at the original shaft, it was worn beyond simple bushing replacement. Since I needed to replace the shaft anyway, and at the time I was not aware that you could even get an OEM style replacement shaft, I decided to improvise and upgrade.

CA-Legal-Vette

Nomar116

After having the car in the air, I'm pretty sure this clutch needs servicing beyond removing the pedal assembly. Turns out bubba had his way with the clutch linkage when they installed a short throw shifter...

I've never seen one of these linkages before, but I'm pretty sure I have a loose or failing outboard ball stud?? So it figures that some of this vibration and loose pedal is due to flexing in the Z bar. I'll have to get it in the air and take another look but looking at diagrams somethings definitely not adding up. I saw ALOT of bending in that bar that didn't seem right!

Tim_Ko

I was having the same problem ... visualizing. You really need to do a google image search and find a photo to look at when you're reading that description.

Robbie-T

hi I have to remove my clutch as well... how hard was it to remove ?

jbthomas

I know this is an old thread but I still have not seen a straight answer. Is it possible to remove the clutch/brake pedal assembly without removing the dash if you pull the steering column? Looks like a PITA and could use some advice. 1966 Stingray 4sp/no PB

drwet

To remove the pedal assembly you need to remove the steering column, and the instrument cluster. The dash does not need to come out. Removing the steering column and the instrument cluster is not that big a deal. The hardest part is probably the speedo cable connection at the speedometer. IIRC the trick is to disconnect the other end so it will slip partway out with the cluster and then disconnect it. Once you have that stuff out of the way, removing the pedal assembly is still a PITA but very doable. As I recall there is one bolt that takes 90% of the time.

Fredtoo

I am trying to remove the brake pedal assembly to install the two pedals in the stick shift conversion

Does anyone have a photo or diagram of where the fasteners are located?
I got the 4 out that hold the brake booster on, but the rest are a mystery

bazza77

four more in front of the wipers ,you will see a metal plate with the 4 bolt heads.
then there's two more under the dash , there is a big plate , cast iron if you have no power steering (early c3) ,or pressed steel if you have power steering . That is bolted to the bottom of the windscreen surround , on the bottom of that plate there is two bolts close together that join onto the pedal assembly

Fredtoo

Thanks, I found them all.
That sucker is a royal pain to remove.
Even with all the bolts removed, I had to pry on the part to get it out.


I would guess that it is the first part of a new car, and the build the rest of the car around it.