Brake Pedal Position Change - Finito!

Has anyone here ever removed their brake pedal arm assembly?

With my size and rheumatoid disease, and that damned console, I can hardly get my head under the dashboard. But I'm fed up with the height of the brake pedal and its proximity to the accelerator (and that damned console!) conspiring to catch my foot under the pedal when I'm going for an emergency switch from gas to brake... It's dangerous

An old friend with a welding shop said if I can get the whole assembly out, he can cut an angled section out of the arm and weld it back together, so that the pedal will sit an inch or so closer to the floor.

Will that still allow you to make a full compression on the pedal for extreme braking? I don't imagine it can be very difficult to pull, but my father has the same condition u speak of. So knowing what u have to deal with in your situation, I would just recomend taking it in or having a close friend do it for you. Sometimes the extra hassle is worth spending the extra $, I think this may be 1 of those cases.

Yes, there would still be plenty of travel.

You may have a point, but between deaths, fights, or just plain moving somewhere cheaper to live, the only friend I have left who I would trust to do this properly is in a wheelchair... and he's over 4 years younger than I am, he just rolled over to 40!

(now where's the 'irony' emoticon?)

Not to add another layer of labor to the situation, but if you find pedal travel to be too long and it hit's the floor on you, you can do as I did and replace your brake hoses with stainless braided flexible lines.
What a difference. Very little travel and excellent brake feel.

Wow, I would never have guessed that the brake hoses would expand that much...
However, for now at least, I've determined that I've got enough travel to spare, especially considering how strong these brakes are.
I'll do a proper measurement before I ever remove the pedal.

Yes, i was very surprised by the difference the first time I took it out after bleeding the brakes.
It was a nice surprise though, didn't take a lot to get used to.

stainless lines sound really trick.
might interest some of you to know that Willood just came out with GM twin piston aluminium calipers that fit 68-96 gm passenger cars and trucks. wonder if they direct fit the riv. ill find out monday.

Well, the bloody thing is back together and I pulled a few photos out of the camera... I dropped the brake pedal 1-1/8 inches, and I think I could have gone another 1/4", especially if I changed my brake hoses as Rick mentioned.

Even so, I can't get my right foot caught under the brake anymore, and after I "reprogram" my foot for a new position, I should be able to roll back & forth between pedals on my heel, the way God intended.

It took a lot of pain pills and a lot of sockets (especially a ball-type swivel impact-socket.) 5 of the 6 nuts that hold the pedal assy to the car are reasonably accessible, but that last sucker is right behind the steering-shaft u-joint and its plastic cover. It takes a combination of loosening the lower steering-column bolts and pulling & prying on that plastic cover to get the socket onto the nut. Getting the nuts back on afterward is even more fun... The saving grace is that the 4 lower studs, which are coming from the back of the brake booster, have small male Torx heads on the end of them, which act to guide the nuts onto the threads correctly.
I'm glad this and my anal-retentive sequencer installation are done with! I wanna' go back to just messing with pulleys & thermostats...


The ultimate anti-theft system...



The pedal assy before cutting:



...and after cutting:



Back in the car:

dynomite! your riv looks super clean too!

Thanks Robo! Those are the "winter mats" that just went in, with all the little cups to keep
the dirt & water from running onto the carpet.
I also wash the car religiously every year, and took an exterior shot last time: Showroom

Eldo wrote:

I also wash the car religiously every year, and took an exterior shot last time: Showroom

I wish i could get away with washing about once a year.
You should see the condition of my car right now. It's absolutely embarrassing with it covered in corrosive road salt.
We haven't had a day that's been above 32*F in a long time.
Until today, it's about 35* now and going to get a little warmer as the day goes on so it's getting a bath today finally.
Good job on the Brake Pedal mod. Hope it works out the way you planned and makes it much easier for you to operate the pedals.

Rickw wrote:

Eldo wrote:

I also wash the car religiously every year, and took an exterior shot last time: Showroom

I wish i could get away with washing about once a year.
You should see the condition of my car right now. It's absolutely embarrassing with it covered in corrosive road salt.
We haven't had a day that's been above 32*F in a long time.
Until today, it's about 35* now and going to get a little warmer as the day goes on so it's getting a bath today finally.
Good job on the Brake Pedal mod. Hope it works out the way you planned and makes it much easier for you to operate the pedals.

Yeah, snow is a bitch (once you're an adult...)

I may have mentioned this in the other thread, but the other 2 reasons I can wash it so little is that it is garaged all the time, and when I do wash it, I follow it with a coat of Rejex. It's an aircraft sealer that acts like RainX for the paint. It only requires easy application, drying, and wiping off (not rubbing.) When the car was outside 24/7, the Rejex lasted 6 months, now it lasts over a year. Dirt doesn't want to stick in the first place, and is easier to wash off ( or get rained off ) when it does.

Someone with your kind of weather & roads should probably give it a try. It's quite reasonable considering I can get 3 applications out of one bottle... And if you like it and have a lot of cars, they also have twin-packs & gallons. Who knows, you might have used this in the Air Force!

I buy it at SkyGeek

Eldo wrote:

I may have mentioned this in the other thread, but the other 2 reasons I can wash it so little is that it is garaged all the time, and when I do wash it, I follow it with a coat of Rejex. It's an aircraft sealer that acts like RainX for the paint. It only requires easy application, drying, and wiping off (not rubbing.) When the car was outside 24/7, the Rejex lasted 6 months, now it lasts over a year. Dirt doesn't want to stick in the first place, and is easier to wash off ( or get rained off ) when it does.
Someone with your kind of weather & roads should probably give it a try. It's quite reasonable considering I can get 3 applications out of one bottle... And if you like it and have a lot of cars, they also have twin-packs & gallons. Who knows, you might have used this in the Air Force!
I buy it at SkyGeek

I've never seen or used the product before but sounds very good. Especially the no rubbing part for back pain.
Your weather out there is much more conducive to keeping a car clean than here. Winter or Summer is difficult to keep the car clean in the Northeast, not like when I lived down south. In the better climates first off, you can wash your car more often just because of temp and good weather, but you don't necessarily need to for the same reasons.
I never had a rust problem nor did I ever have to replace an exhaust system due to corrosion. On my other vehicles that don't have stainless exhaust, I have to replace the cat back at least every 2 and no more than 3 years. Best to get a Lifetime Warranty on a muffler from NAPA.
Anyway, never was in the Airforce - always worked as a civilian in the aviation industry.Thanks for the tip on this product.
Have you had a chance to test drive with the "New" brake pedal. I'm very curious to see how that is working out for you. Cheers,
Rick

I use a polymer truck polish. You can save a buck or 2 on Rejex from:

http://www.rejex.com/shopping.htm#LED

Albertj

Follow-up, now that I've driven it a bit...

Well, it is definitely impossible to get my foot caught beneath the brake pedal now. I'm getting used to 'reprogramming' the best spot to put my heel to be able to roll back & forth between the gas & the brake, which was impossible before, and I don't have to lift my whole leg to get from the gas to the brake which is good for my hip.

The two pedals still aren't exactly level, so I wish I'd gone down another 1/4" or so, but I was playing it very safe. You still can't quite bottom out the brake by really standing on it with all your might, and in actual use you'd never get close anyway, unless you had air in the system... Plus, there is always Rick's trick of replacing the flexible brake lines with braided units, to take more slack out of the hydraulic system.
If anyone else were to do this, I'd now recommend dropping the pedal least 1 3/8", instead of 1 1/8".