Well, I love the way the General made em, but some things can be improved upon occasionally. One thing that has always particularly bugged me for some reason is how high off the floor my clutch and brake pedals are - I always seem to need to be a bit of a contortionist to comfortably get my left foot on top of the pedal without hitting my knee on the steering wheel. Might just be me, but anyway, I decided to do something about it, or at least try. I'm pretty happy with the results - but the final plan took a major twist from the original plan.
Plan A was to buy a spare set of pedals and back-cut them just below the pivot point, heat and bend them down a bit and weld them closed. Good plan, retains the stock bump stops, so I bought a set of pedals cheap out of another 66.
Once I got around to monkeying with it and looking around underneath... I changed the plan - I figured that as long as I had the adjustability available in the clutch linkage and the brake push rod, I'd install some homemade adjustable bump stops and then just adjust the linkage. The nice thing about Plan A was that there would be no changes to the bump stops or the linkage. But the odds of me getting BOTH pedals exactly matched with my "superior" welding skills... slim to none. So, Plan B it is! And this plan only requires adjustments to the linkage and no pedals were harmed in the filming of this mod
So, I'll post a string of pics that will hopefully be self explanatory - they are in order showing how high the pedals were originally - and they were not both the same height off the floor. The clutch pedal was 7+3/4" off the floorboard and the brake pedal was 6+7/8" off the floorboard. Now, both are 5.5" off the floorboard. I am just about out of adjustability on the brake pedal pushrod, but once it's set (i.e. if you have enough available, it's all good) it won't need adjusting again. The clutch linkage has tons of adjustability built in. And yes, I burned the scar on my wrist that just healed up from the last time I worked on the truck when it was hot (on the exhaust down-tube)... Ouch!
This was a simple mod that some of you tall folks may appreciate - only took about 30 minutes total once I gathered the parts.
- remove the rubber bump stops
- get some 3/8" bolts 1" long and some washers and lock nuts - and Home Depot's "finest" replacement door stop rubber bumpers!
And voila.
Anyhoo, a few warnings:
- on your test drive and probably for a few trips afterward - go to a NON-BUSY area - your muscle memory in your legs will still want to raise your leg a lot and you won't find the pedals where you THINK they are... will cause a delayed reaction in braking until you get used to it. And you will get used to it very quickly (will feel much more like a modern vehicle where the brake and gas are much closer to the same height off the floorboard - and you'll like it).
- DON'T forget to adjust your brake light switch... I did, and luckily noticed about 4 hours later that my brake lights were on!! I disc'ed the battery, will adjust it today - hope there is enough adjustment left on the brake light switch or I'm gonna be bummed... Anyway, don't overlook this little item or you'll trash your battery overnight.
I've been driving it a bit now and I really like it. Much more comfortable driving position while shifting and braking. Takes a little getitng used to and getting over the fact where it "feels" like my pedals are about to hit the floorboards when I brake - and the associated fear of running out of brake pedal travel - but in fact there is plenty of room left below the pedal - it just "seems" that way because of muscle memory.
The nicest thing of all about this mod - 100% reversible if I do decide I would prefer the way GM did it at some point in the future. Would only take about 20 minutes to go 100% back to stock setup (save those rubber bumpers!)
Will take a few posts to get all the pics in (the 3rd & 4th pics really illustrate the difference after just adjusting the clutch pedal - before the brake pedal is adjusted). 5th pic is just the original bump stop for reference.