Fixing the hydraulic flex
11-12-2014, 11:13 PM
#1
Pro
Thread Starter
Fixing the hydraulic flex
While I knew this was coming, I figured I had more time to get to it. About 80%
of this fix was engineered in my head before the firewall let go. Pedal
effort/travel gave no hint that this was going to happen. Stepped on the clutch
at a stop light and it was good. Went to step on it again and nothing! Pushed
the car to the side of the road and saw this when I opened the hood!
I had been checking the "braces" sold thru Detroit Speed and some other vendors,
but thee are a few problems with them. They are for F and X bodies. Not
Vettes. Our firewalls are contoured differently and they will not line up, and
they can't promise that they'll work. Secondly, they sandwich between the brake
master and the firewall to take advantage of the pedal box reinforcement in that
area. But doing so moves the brake master away from the pedal. Without a
longer or adjustable pushrod, the pedal will be in a lower than normal position
when at rest, and the brake light switch will need to be adjusted. I'm not sure
if that "slight" change in geometry will affect the marginal by today's
standards brake system or not, but I'm not going to find out first hand. So I
decided to attack this issue from the other direction.
The big steel plate is going to be part of the patch panel, and give secondary
support to the clutch master. It runs from the 3 bolts holding the hood latch
to the firewall down to the bulkhead connectors going to the fusebox. This
plate normally wouldn't need to be this large, but with the integrity of my
firewall in question I figured bigger is better.
Along the way, I added a 4th thru bolt that will limit just how much stress the
latch bolts will see. I put it a bit above the release cable where there are
multiple layers of glass, not just the flimsy single layer that has already
proven it's failure prone.
Under the dash, I fabbed up a L bracket attaching to the lower 2 bolts that hold
the clutch master to the firewall and ran a turnbuckle to the steering column
drop/mount. This is the heart of the fix, and was a whopping $9.00 worth of
hardware.
Pics of the finished product in a day or so. Still need to smooth some rough edges, paint the plate and reinstall everything. Also replacing the fuse block while I'm in there. Then I move on to taking the slop out of the Tremec shifter and adding positive stops so the shift forks don't get abused.
of this fix was engineered in my head before the firewall let go. Pedal
effort/travel gave no hint that this was going to happen. Stepped on the clutch
at a stop light and it was good. Went to step on it again and nothing! Pushed
the car to the side of the road and saw this when I opened the hood!
I had been checking the "braces" sold thru Detroit Speed and some other vendors,
but thee are a few problems with them. They are for F and X bodies. Not
Vettes. Our firewalls are contoured differently and they will not line up, and
they can't promise that they'll work. Secondly, they sandwich between the brake
master and the firewall to take advantage of the pedal box reinforcement in that
area. But doing so moves the brake master away from the pedal. Without a
longer or adjustable pushrod, the pedal will be in a lower than normal position
when at rest, and the brake light switch will need to be adjusted. I'm not sure
if that "slight" change in geometry will affect the marginal by today's
standards brake system or not, but I'm not going to find out first hand. So I
decided to attack this issue from the other direction.
The big steel plate is going to be part of the patch panel, and give secondary
support to the clutch master. It runs from the 3 bolts holding the hood latch
to the firewall down to the bulkhead connectors going to the fusebox. This
plate normally wouldn't need to be this large, but with the integrity of my
firewall in question I figured bigger is better.
Along the way, I added a 4th thru bolt that will limit just how much stress the
latch bolts will see. I put it a bit above the release cable where there are
multiple layers of glass, not just the flimsy single layer that has already
proven it's failure prone.
Under the dash, I fabbed up a L bracket attaching to the lower 2 bolts that hold
the clutch master to the firewall and ran a turnbuckle to the steering column
drop/mount. This is the heart of the fix, and was a whopping $9.00 worth of
hardware.
Pics of the finished product in a day or so. Still need to smooth some rough edges, paint the plate and reinstall everything. Also replacing the fuse block while I'm in there. Then I move on to taking the slop out of the Tremec shifter and adding positive stops so the shift forks don't get abused.
Last edited by Fordracer9; 11-12-2014 at 11:33 PM.
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amamdani (10-12-2015)
12-16-2014, 04:54 PM
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clutch issues
While I knew this was coming, I figured I had more time to get to it. About 80%
of this fix was engineered in my head before the firewall let go. Pedal
effort/travel gave no hint that this was going to happen. Stepped on the clutch
at a stop light and it was good. Went to step on it again and nothing! Pushed
the car to the side of the road and saw this when I opened the hood!
I had been checking the "braces" sold thru Detroit Speed and some other vendors,
but thee are a few problems with them. They are for F and X bodies. Not
Vettes. Our firewalls are contoured differently and they will not line up, and
they can't promise that they'll work. Secondly, they sandwich between the brake
master and the firewall to take advantage of the pedal box reinforcement in that
area. But doing so moves the brake master away from the pedal. Without a
longer or adjustable pushrod, the pedal will be in a lower than normal position
when at rest, and the brake light switch will need to be adjusted. I'm not sure
if that "slight" change in geometry will affect the marginal by today's
standards brake system or not, but I'm not going to find out first hand. So I
decided to attack this issue from the other direction.
The big steel plate is going to be part of the patch panel, and give secondary
support to the clutch master. It runs from the 3 bolts holding the hood latch
to the firewall down to the bulkhead connectors going to the fusebox. This
plate normally wouldn't need to be this large, but with the integrity of my
firewall in question I figured bigger is better.
Along the way, I added a 4th thru bolt that will limit just how much stress the
latch bolts will see. I put it a bit above the release cable where there are
multiple layers of glass, not just the flimsy single layer that has already
proven it's failure prone.
Under the dash, I fabbed up a L bracket attaching to the lower 2 bolts that hold
the clutch master to the firewall and ran a turnbuckle to the steering column
drop/mount. This is the heart of the fix, and was a whopping $9.00 worth of
hardware.
Pics of the finished product in a day or so. Still need to smooth some rough edges, paint the plate and reinstall everything. Also replacing the fuse block while I'm in there. Then I move on to taking the slop out of the Tremec shifter and adding positive stops so the shift forks don't get abused.
of this fix was engineered in my head before the firewall let go. Pedal
effort/travel gave no hint that this was going to happen. Stepped on the clutch
at a stop light and it was good. Went to step on it again and nothing! Pushed
the car to the side of the road and saw this when I opened the hood!
I had been checking the "braces" sold thru Detroit Speed and some other vendors,
but thee are a few problems with them. They are for F and X bodies. Not
Vettes. Our firewalls are contoured differently and they will not line up, and
they can't promise that they'll work. Secondly, they sandwich between the brake
master and the firewall to take advantage of the pedal box reinforcement in that
area. But doing so moves the brake master away from the pedal. Without a
longer or adjustable pushrod, the pedal will be in a lower than normal position
when at rest, and the brake light switch will need to be adjusted. I'm not sure
if that "slight" change in geometry will affect the marginal by today's
standards brake system or not, but I'm not going to find out first hand. So I
decided to attack this issue from the other direction.
The big steel plate is going to be part of the patch panel, and give secondary
support to the clutch master. It runs from the 3 bolts holding the hood latch
to the firewall down to the bulkhead connectors going to the fusebox. This
plate normally wouldn't need to be this large, but with the integrity of my
firewall in question I figured bigger is better.
Along the way, I added a 4th thru bolt that will limit just how much stress the
latch bolts will see. I put it a bit above the release cable where there are
multiple layers of glass, not just the flimsy single layer that has already
proven it's failure prone.
Under the dash, I fabbed up a L bracket attaching to the lower 2 bolts that hold
the clutch master to the firewall and ran a turnbuckle to the steering column
drop/mount. This is the heart of the fix, and was a whopping $9.00 worth of
hardware.
Pics of the finished product in a day or so. Still need to smooth some rough edges, paint the plate and reinstall everything. Also replacing the fuse block while I'm in there. Then I move on to taking the slop out of the Tremec shifter and adding positive stops so the shift forks don't get abused.
I am in the process of reassembling my C2 with a manual transmission after being converted to right hand drive and am having difficulty working out exactly where the clutch pushrod goes thru the firewall.
The original hole has long disappeared and I have a "new" firewall with no such hole.
Relative to the column and brake mounts could you please let me know the location?
I see that the master cylinder you are using seems to be mounted at an angle....which master is this, and does it connect to the original clutch pedal pushrod pin in the original location?
Your help with this would be appreciated.
The mount plate you have fabbed looks impressive...how is it working?
TIA