Isuzu pedal assembly in my 62 CJ5 (Now with PICS!)

So, finally tired of my stock pedal arangement, body flexing over obsticals making the pedals bind against the body, pulling up over rocks dragging the pivot, and the joy of flexing the frame 'just' enough to pop the bell crank for the clutch mechanism off.

So I decided to go for hanging pedals to eliminate these issues. Plus, I figured a brake booster would be a good addition to the stock brakes since they leave a lot to be desired.

So off I went to the junkyard. I probably spent 2 hours looking in all sorts of cars and trucks to try to find something, anything that would work. I needed a compact brake booster, and wanted to find pedal assemblies that mounted to a flat firewall.

What I finally found was a mid 90's Isuzu Trooper with a manual transmission. The pedal arms were really long (about 18 inches or so) so I knew I would have enough to bend them around to where I needed them, the fire wall was flat, and the clutch slave cylinder was a seperate unit bolted onto the bell housing. (I was amazed at how many trucks have the slave cylinder inside the bell housing!)

So I grabbed everything. Pedal assemblies, mastercylinder, brake porportioning valve, slave cylinder and the lines connecting it to everything and the residual valve for the clutch setup. Was able to get the whole pile of parts for $90.

I ended up having to fab up a funky mount for the slave cylinder to mount onto my Buick bell housing, and make two new brake lines from the porportioning valve to the front wheels, the rear brake line was able to be re-routed from the factory T up to the Isuzu system with no mods which was great. The stock vacuum hose to the Isuzu had a check valve in it, so instead of replacing the hose, I just extended it and T'd it into the PCV valve vacuum line.

I then built a plate for the firewall out of 3/16" steel for everything to mount to. I then mounted this in my vice with the pedals attatched and used the torch to bend the pedals to thier correct locations. The brake pedal arm lenght was 'perfect' to get it bent so it goes behind the steering column, then down right to where the stock pedal used to be. The clutch arm didn't have to move over quite as much, and as a result I had to cut out an inch of the arm and weld it back together. So now both pedals are in the same location as they used to be.


The system works GREAT! The clutch is very light and easy to use which will be nice when out on the trail, the brakes are 10X better! I can lock up the tires in the drive way which I didn't thing was ever going to be possible with the stock drums. They aren't too sensitive, but mashing them does lock them up. It feels very "factory" and comfortable.

I know I totally lucked out finding something that ended up working so well, but figured i'd throw this out there on the ECJ5 forum in case anyone else wanted to swap to hanging pedals but wasn't really sure where to start at. Hope someone else finds this issue helpful.

I'll post pics later today!

 

Re: Isuzu pedal assembly in my 62 CJ5

Interesting write-up.

While reading the first part of your post I'm reminded of my '75 CJ5. The body was so loose on the body mounts from so much of it being rusted out that when the Jeep got on a hill leaning to the right (driver's side up) the body would lift off the frame so much that you'd lose most of your clutch pedal. Sad to say, I had to grind some gears in situations like that.

 

Re: Isuzu pedal assembly in my 62 CJ5

Good - work - this is how these kind of swaps become "established." Being able to prowl among the cars at the junkyard is a great resource - the pick-your-part yards are great for this.

I'm looking forward to pics!

Alex, that's a common problem with a bellcrank, even without the body rust.

 

Re: Isuzu pedal assembly in my 62 CJ5

Here's the pics:

Here's the 3/16" metal plate a made to attach the pedal assemblies and master cylinders to the firewall:



Here is is mounted on the firewall:



Here I put the plate in the vice so I could heat the pedal arms and get them bent to where I needed them to be. The brake pedal assembly is pretty long, but it does clear the dash:



Here the pedal pads rest in the same location as stock, so driving it around feels just like it used to. Except with much better brakes and a super smooth clutch:



Pic of the engine bay. You can see the clutch residual valve and the brake porportioning valve that I made sure I snagged with the whole assembly. For the brakes I took everthing from the pedal pad to the residual valve, for the clutch I grabbed the whole thing, from pad to slave cylinder. I am using all the factory lines for the clutch:




I still can't get over how much of an improvement this has been over the stock setup. Just about locked up the tires stopping for a light that turned red. It can probably stop faster than my wifes 2000 TJ now.

And did I mention the whole assemblies from the junkyard was only $90? Love it! The steel plate started out as a 12x12 plate that I notched and drilled. That cost me 10 bucks. Brake lines, brake fluid, etc, was another $40. Whole mod was about $150 not counting wear on tools and using a bit of scrap steel for the slave cylinder mount. Started on it on Monday, was done before the weekend came so downtime was pretty minimal.

 

looks great
any pics of the mount for the clutch?

 

Nicely done and another donor option for folks!

 

No pics of the clutch slave cylinder, nothing real great to see there. It's pretty scabby looking and I ain't proud. Next time the engine/trans is out i'm going to make something much nicer.

I will note, the isuzu clutch is 'just' barely enough throw to work on my Buick clutch. It does fully disengage, but I had to back off the pedal stop all the way to get enough throw on its master cylinder to get it and the slave had to be mounted without any movement for it to work.

 

Ok, after a little research I found an 86 trooper with a cable clutch and am wondering if it will work in place of hydraulic clutch. The price is right, just don't know if the cable will work the Buick clutch. Anyone know if this will work? Sorry for the hi jack, but if anyone else wants to to this type of conversion this info will help.

 

nice work. thanks for the pics now im going to have to check the local pick-a-part. if you could can you take a pic of the mount on the bell housing even if its not your proudest fab work.

 

Sorry for the thread revival....
I did a similar conversion on my 62. It was already modified when I bought it to have an M151 drive train so I wasn't worried about originality anyway. My mods cost less than $100 and about 8 hours of my time
I took out the original push pedals lock stock and pivots....I made a firewall plate similar to the one made in this thread and mounted hanging pedals from a Mazda B2200. They worked with no bending and are actually spread slightly from the originals and feel very natural.
I used the Mazda Clutch master cylinder and a toyota slave. I mounted the slave to the Jeep frame and added an arm to the z-bar clutch system to actuate the clutch. I did trial and error on the arm length to get the throw correct. It works very smoothly.
I used a Nissan Sentra brake booster and used a 71 Jeep master cylinder(drum only) that was only modified to get it mounted on the booster (holes were too narrow by 1/4 inch so they were wallowed till they went over the studs). Brakes work well.
The last thing I did was flip the removed heater box and remounted it on the right side of the Jeep firewall and reconnected it. I still have to do the duct work to have defroster but it at least will warm the Jeep with the hardtop on.
If anyone wants to see pictures of the clutch slave set up I'll post them.

Scott

 

You bet- post them. I'm going to be at the picnpull next weekend and hopefully starting on mocking up the pedal assembly right after that.

 

Heck yeah, lets see some pics of that setup! I'm in the research stage of this mod, too many other projects lined up to get started on it right now but it will be handy when the time comes.

 

I'll get some posted this evening after work.

Scott

 

Here's some pics. They all are from underneath. Because of the m151 drive train mod I have a Z-bar to actuate the clutch fork. I couldn't mount the slave cylinder on the engine or transmission due to the exhaust pipe being so close to the clutch fork rod. I thought the heat would be detrimental to the slave cylinder. These pictures were taken before I replaced my rotted floor panels...LOL.
the first is from behind the Z-bar. The angle bracket is bolted directly to the frame rail on the inside top.

Next from in front.

The next is directly underneath.

I'll have to try to get some pics from above to add later.

Scott

 

nice!

 

Thanks for the pics. They're a good reminder to leave room for the exhaust pipe. My exhaust pipe will not be in the rig when I figure the clutch linkage out so I'll need to bear that in mind. There's so little room in that area of the jeep.

Anyhow, it shows there's more than one way to hook it up.

 

Pics of the slave cylinder from the top are hard to get. It's right behind the stearing box.


The next pics are my flipped heater box and my current booster master and cluch master set up. The electric fuel pump pictured is temporary till I can find a good manual M151 fuel pump.



Scott