Muzikp's Sometimes Driveable Build

Take a look at what I did on Steve's 71 build. There is a scary amount of flex in the firewall of a 5. I recommend welding that plate in, and at a minimum tying the brake pedal bracket to the cowl.
Picked Up A 71 For A Buddy Of Mine......

 

I like what you did here. I have a piece that extends up from my pedal bracket that I could do the same thing. Nice job welding your delete plate to the thin sheet metal. I considered welding it but it's just so thin right there. I went with two plates front and back and so far it feels pretty stiff but I'm guessing that's because I haven't used my leg to push on it yet. Thanks for the info.

 

Did you make these pedals or did you find a set like that? I'm trying to figure out how to fab the pedal arm now.

 

That is a YJ pedal assembly. I Heated and bent the pedals to match the CJ floorboard angle at full push. On page 3 of the build, you can see the angle that I bent the pedal.

 

Awesome, thanks for the info. I've been a subscriber to the Steve's 70 thread but I guess I forgot about your swinging pedal documentation since it wasn't relevant to me at the time.

I guess I'll pick up a thick piece of bar stock and try bending my own. That should be interesting.

 

Cut most of the way through with an angle grinder and weld the open side of the bend. It works well.

 

Decided today to go over top of steering column so I made a new template that I clamped to the remaining piece of brake pedal.





Happy with that layout I grabbed a piece of 2" x 3/8" plate and heated it to bend the 90's, actually a friend a couple blocks away did the heating and I bent it.



Then marked it for the shape



And cut it with the torch



And tacked it to my pedal assembly





I bought a bolt for the pedal, I will weld that to the arm once I get it all fit and mounted.





It will look like this



Which brings up a question, can you weld grade 8 bolts?

 

The rest of the day was spent making a bracket for the very top of the brake pedal mount. I made a bracket that welds to the cowl and bolts through the pedal to hold everything really firm. I now realize how brutal it is to work under the dash up high at the cowl. Even with the seats out you can't bend and contort into a comfortable position. And welding up there...

Anyway I am about 80% done getting that bracket in there. I'll get pictures of the final setup soon.

 

Muzikp, Most grade 8 bolts are 4140 grade, the welding of grade 8 bolts generally leaves them hard and brittle after the heat of the welding.

In this usage it probably wouldn't be a problem but if the bolt was to have a lot of force applied it may snap off.
More force than foot pressure.
But don't quench it to cool it down, cool slowly will help.

Using a 4.6 grade would be a sure bet.

 

Given your overall increase in length and offset, that brake pedal arm looks to me to be only half as thick as it should be. It it were mine, I'd double the thickness of it.

 

Me too. I'd even go as far as making another piece exactly the same, offsetting it to the upper right 1/2" and adding 1/2" wide strips top and bottom to effectively build rectangular tubing out of it to really resist twisting. The last thing you want is for that to bend or fold (or fatigue and eventually break) in a panic situation.

Flat bar has all of its strength in straight-line force. Offsetting it like that will transfer half the input force into twisting force on the upper section of the arm. You need to do what you can to mitigate that.

 

Thanks, it's not too late to pickup a better candidate.

 

I thought about thicker and was considering 1/2" but it just seemed overkill. I can't imagine having the strength in my legs to bend or twist this thing but fatigue could be a concern. What's not shown in this picture is an additional 90 that I welded on the opposite side of the existing pedal and bends around to the bottom of the flat part, that probably doesn't make sense but it's really strong where it attaches to the the existing pedal. I have room to add some gussets at the two 90's which would resist the twisting motion. I'm not the least bit concerned about bending this thing but if you guys are then I'll strengthen it, still easy to do at this point. Honestly I think the weak point of the whole thing is the bracket that the pedal is attached to. It's not designed for that much offset. That's also easily solved at this point. Thanks for the input, I'll think about all that for a bit.

 

So here's the piece that got welded to the other side of the pedal.



Then I put the assembly in the vice and put a large crescent wrench on it to see if I could get it to twist or flex. I'm no Mr. Universe but I'm not weak, I couldn't get it to budge. The piece is 2-1/4" wide by .040" thick, that's a lot of steel. It's super strong. At any rate I decided to gusset it a bit to at least add a little strength to the part that could potentially twist. I don't think the gussets will do much since they don't meet in the middle but it will at least help concentrate the twisting force to a smaller area and be harder to twist... at least that's what I told myself. Honestly I still feel like it's plenty strong.



What for sure wasn't strong was the frame that holds the pedal. So I plated it on top and it's so much better now.





This is the bracket that is up inside the cowl and welded to the body. The very top of the pedal assembly bolts to this bracket which firms everything up very nicely. I can't believe how hard this was to weld, I don't have small welding goggles just a big ole mask. This was brutal to get in there and the welds look terrible. Sometimes you can't get your head in a position to see what you are welding. I was able to apply a lot of force to it afterwards and couldn't break it off so there's that anyway.



There it is all said and done, looking back I liked it better without the gussets and I don't think they are providing much additional strength but I can live with this. It's a trail Jeep not a show Jeep.

 

Does anybody know where I hook the vacuum for the brake booster on the Offenhauser manifold, or does it not go on the manifold? Here are a bunch of terrible pictures for your viewing pleasure .

 

It's hard to see in the pics but my guess would be its where that square head pipe plug is under your rear fuel bowl. You'll need a 90° fitting to clear the carburetor is all.

 

Great info thx. I was hoping that's where it was, that's easy to get to. Can anybody confirm the guess, I can scratch that off the list today if I know that's it. Unfortunately I can't start it and test because I have no exhaust on at the moment.

 

looking at mine jersey-jeep is correct....in the last picture, just replace the pipe plug with a 90 degree fitting with hose barb.

 

Thanks guys, appreciate it.

Spent what little time I had today getting the old distribution block off my brake lines, sketching up the new system and then running around to different stores to find the right parts to re-plumb my brake lines.



The red brass distribution block is my old one for the single circuit setup. Since I'm going to a dual circuit it doesn't make sense to run it all into a single circuit block. So I bought two separate blocks, one for front and one for rear.

Also bought two 50" brake line sections to go from master cylinder to the new blocks. Unfortunately I couldn't get the old block out without damaging a couple of the brass fittings, think they have been in there too long and were really tight. That means I need to cut the old brake line and re-flare to get it into the new blocks.



And since I don't have much experience with building a Jeep I've made it hard on myself with this Nissan Altima brake booster and master cylinder. It's metric thread and tubing size, which of course doesn't match anything on the Jeep . That never crossed my mind when I found the great deal on the brake pedal, master, booster setup. But I think I've got that figured out and I'm ready to start flaring and bending and get the brakes all plumbed.

I also started cleaning my exhaust manifolds that I bought off Craig's recently. They are cleaning up nicely. Should I run them like that or get some high temp paint?