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PollyMobiles Rebuild

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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
There's always next year, even the refresh of the injectors is a step in the right direction ready for next years summer :)
I'll be here Saturday, ready n waiting, see what we can and cant do :)

the fresh injectors a big improvement in consistancy. summers too far away, wannit now :p
 
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
We have November, I'm all booked n paid up for Blyton, so it should be good fun, wonder what circuit they'll use for the day

nice. I've not been able to found a virtual track mod of it for the pc race games i have like simbin GTR or rfactor so can't familiarise with simulation beforehand. just have to watch videos n learn on the day.
 

SirChris

Educated Bodger
received new bits from chris tday. thanks chris :cool:

View attachment 35923

non ABS servo. question, does anyone know how to seperate the fluid tank from the MS?

View attachment 35924

newer pedals

View attachment 35919

bonnet hinges to replace the current nut & bolt

View attachment 35920

new leads. compared the resistances with the old one: (cyl #1, #2, #3, #4)
old set: 2.17 2.42 3.26 3.43ohms
new set: 2.22 2.50 3.35 3.62ohms

View attachment 35921

brake lines

View attachment 35925
View attachment 35922

only have one hub/strut nut bolt, forgot to mention I needed all 4 nuts but meh, ain't needed yet.
Literally pull it off Paul.
 

SirChris

Educated Bodger
BTW ur a **** Paul... I was on the phone to you and I was like... You need just one nut. U sure u don't need more or the bolts. You were like you might as well throw the bolt in, I just need one though. Silly twat. Glad it all reached you well.
 

h701micra

Deactivated Account
nice. I've not been able to found a virtual track mod of it for the pc race games i have like simbin GTR or rfactor so can't familiarise with simulation beforehand. just have to watch videos n learn on the day.
Look at some sprint videos there's plenty of those, there's 3 circuits they can run so I guess its case of going in blind... apart from the outer circuit, I know that well :D
 
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
Literally pull it off Paul.

righteo

BTW ur a #### Paul... I was on the phone to you and I was like... You need just one nut. U sure u don't need more or the bolts. You were like you might as well throw the bolt in, I just need one though. Silly twat. Glad it all reached you well.

lol I thought I said nuts rather than A nut but meh, ain't important.
thx for the good packing

I can imagine me following you both in to battle next year.

I'd luv that
 
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
ah S##t, Andy I'm not gonna make it this weekend or afew weekends cos found a serious problem that needs fixing.

gradually over the past months I thought the clutch was getting alot heavier (like previously with the 3 paddle clutch when the thrust bearing grease dried up) and the bite point was getting lower, even though the cable was fully tightened all the way plus the extra spacer on the end.

tday it was very heavy and began to creak. now that I received the replacement pedals from chris, time to swap em.
removed the clutch cable & bracket and Ohh this ain't good, part of the bulkhead has buckled in o_O gonna have to somehow squeeze it flat again

DSC09638.JPG


went to undo the top bolt and eh? the bolt is pointing to one side, perhaps the flange has bent down

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pedal was abit jammed to the deformed buckled bolt holes, pulled it out and Oh bugga one of the holes has buckled n cracked (which could spread to the bigger hole and fail)

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but looking up is a bigger issue. oh F$%k the upper support bracket has almost completely broken off :eek:
I was >this< close to complete clutch failure tday again:confused:

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FFS after strengthening all the stuff that failed last time the thrust bearing seized (cable end rivets & cable support) the next weak spot to fail when the clutch sticks again was the actual chassis mount itself :rolleyes:

I'm gonna have to strip the whole dash out,
stick weld a stiffer support bracket to the bulkhead without blowing holes,
take out the gearbox,
reseal the gearbox cos its leaking slightly,
assess and relube the clutch (anyone recommend a good lube to use for the thrust bearing collar that will NEVER clog with dirt and bind up n cause these failures? someone once suggested something like PTFE lube?),
reassemble it all,
goto andy to swap tyres n lower brace,
corner balance the susp,
adjust the wastegate arm,
etc etc all in 20days!?:confused: dunno if I got the time to do it.

looked on trackdays.co.uk T&C bout possibly cancelling cadwell if I cant fix in time, and they cannot cancel or refund WTF? so have to make it or lose out £120 :mad::rolleyes:

pedals all removed

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new clutch pedal pivot has alot less play

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brake pedals and throttle have the same amount of play

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this is gonna be another crazy month:oops:
 
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SirChris

Educated Bodger
Bloody knew it wasn't right and I said its going to create too much stress. Return the clutch cable to the furthest point dude. I think I have a significantly heavier pressure plate and it was never that severe even with the previous cack clutch cable
 

SirChris

Educated Bodger
righteo



lol I thought I said nuts rather than A nut but meh, ain't important.
thx for the good packing



I'd luv that
I do hope the packaging was okay and that's not sarcasm. I was really worried about it all getting there okay and went a bit over kill.
 
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
Bloody knew it wasn't right and I said its going to create too much stress. Return the clutch cable to the furthest point dude. I think I have a significantly heavier pressure plate and it was never that severe even with the previous cack clutch cable

yeah thought it didn't seem right having to push that hard like last time it failed. damn thrust bearing collar
 
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
to reinforce & improve the clutch pedal area I'm thinking:
- tack a thick steel plate to the bulkhead to spread the load from the two small pedal bracket studs over a larger area
- modify the bracket to have 4 bulkhead studs to keep it from twisting
- modify the top of pedal bracket to have either two bolt holes both sides or one middle bolt hole so the force of the pedal downwards isn't pulling the bracket offset
- replace the flimsy upper support bracket with a beefy piece of square tube cutoff
- maybe re-engineer the entire pedal support as an enclosed stiff box with only essential access gaps?
- replace the soft plastic pedal bushings with solid ball bearings?
 
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
cleared up the garage, just checked & measured the pedals chris sent over and the clutch has the same 5mm of play and although my current brake pedal has 3mm of play and rattled, the one chris sent has 5mm of play, guess I'll have to convert to ball bearings and buy more sheet steel to weld :(

feel this ain't a good month. even more money and time wasted as well as the stress of work:oops:
 

h701micra

Deactivated Account
Hmm this may be a time to reveal that surprise I had for you, whilst extremely bored in hospital I've been designing and developing all sorts and one deaign is a floor mounted pedal system.
To get comfy on the pedals in H701 I'm too close to the steering wheel hence the pedal box idea.
This can be all 3 hydraulic or retain standard cable use, this is the part I'm up to research wise. Do we need longer cables? Clutch cable should make it but I can add arms to the clecis pivots to a certain extent
(Which is 2 things Chris has mentioned that I'm building :p the other being the lightweight heater)

We can either retain a servo and cylinder on.the backplate which would fit in the car itself rather than on the bulkhead, or a twin cylinder with bias bar fitted. All comes down to cost at the time. All require a brake pipe mod which is cheap enough

I'll keep you up to date Paul :)
 
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
sounds an interesting setup :cool:

tonight comparing the pedals and looking at how to convert them to ball bearings.

new pedal uses a tension spring while the old one was a bi-stable spring

DSC09649.JPG


the new pedal stopper is at the lower bit of the bracket while the old pedal was from the top front of the bracket

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top of new pedal has hole for the tension spring

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the new pedals pivot shaft has a solid rivet while the old pedal has a lip rivet

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grinded the rivet off and disassembled. the clutch and brake pedals use the exact same bushing

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this is the dimensions of the standard pedal bushing layout

brake_clutch_bushing.jpg

took afew mins of thinking (with no tea) to figure out how to fit ball bearings

DSC09660.JPG


the bore of the pedal arm hole is 18mm so gonna use an 18mm outer dia bearing but cos the inner dia will be smaller I'll need to reduce the size of the hole in the pedal bracket, so figure I'll just weld this M8 thick washer over the hole with the smaller hole

DSC09661.JPG


then some washers to space the bearing inner race from the welded washer so it doesn't foul the pedal bracket

DSC09662.JPG


this will be the new setup

brake_clutch_ballbearing.jpg


there's no flanged bearing with a 18x8x4mm (outer, inner, width) but found an 18x12x4mm bearing.

ordered 4
http://simplybearings.co.uk/shop/It...oove+Ball+Bearing+12x18x4mm/product_info.html
 

SirChris

Educated Bodger
So why do you need bearings. Mines holding up? Is it ur short throw clutch arm which is causing the issues with its low levering force?
 
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
or you could fit a clutch that does,nt strain the factory components paul ?

changing clutch is out the question.

this has been the only clutch (and a very expensive one) to reliably handle this torque as a daily with occasional track abuse. ain't got the funds or energy to explore any further when this works perfectly at the mo.

the main cause for all this issue is a dirty sticky thrust bearing collar grease.
I tried copper grease and graphite powder and all seem to eventually gunge up with dirt n dust into this thick paste which strains the entire clutch mechanism.

when it began to slowly get harder n harder I just ignored n got used to the strain over time rather than service it cos pulling the gearbox out was alot of work. now my ignorance has eventually lead to an even bigger inconvenient issue.

what'd you guys suggest as a good lube for the release bearing slider?
 

SirChris

Educated Bodger
changing clutch is out the question.

this has been the only clutch (and a very expensive one) to reliably handle this torque as a daily with occasional track abuse. ain't got the funds or energy to explore any further when this works perfectly at the mo.

the main cause for all this issue is a dirty sticky thrust bearing collar grease.
I tried copper grease and graphite powder and all seem to eventually gunge up with dirt n dust into this thick paste which strains the entire clutch mechanism.

when it began to slowly get harder n harder I just ignored n got used to the strain over time rather than service it cos pulling the gearbox out was alot of work. now my ignorance has eventually lead to an even bigger inconvenient issue.

what'd you guys suggest as a good lube for the release bearing slider?

Its not the release bearing slider unless its caked with crap. I use a dab on the slider and when I say a dab, I mean **** all lol. Its ur cable and position of the clutch cable on the clutch release arm mate.actually you said you have changed the cable? Ur modded position of the clutch cable will lessen the lever effect meaning ur having to really force the pedal.
 
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
So why do you need bearings. Mines holding up? Is it ur short throw clutch arm which is causing the issues with its low levering force?

wanna try ball bearings to eliminate the amount of sideways pedal play, reduce friction for smoother motion and improve durability.
the shorter clutch arm throw is to increase the amount travel of the release bearing cos the big PP has a bigger distance from fully slack (no load on thrust bearing) to fully disengaged (max load beyond bite point) compared to stock.
 
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
Its not the release bearing slider unless its caked with crap. I use a dab on the slider and when I say a dab, I mean #### all lol. Its ur cable and position of the clutch cable on the clutch release arm mate.actually you said you have changed the cable? Ur modded position of the clutch cable will lessen the lever effect meaning ur having to really force the pedal.

imo it's always been a caked/dried release bearing slider lube thats caused the mechanism to feel very resistive over time and break something.
cos every time the slider collar is cleaned & applied fresh lube to it n same cable n setup, it suddenly feels normal n alot lighter than before.
cable has been ziptied to ensure the inner cable doesn't touch the outer cable lip.
 
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
I believe the main causes of all the clutch problems are:
- exposed bell housing
Pro: improving ease of assess and clutch cooling
Cons: allowing all dirt/debris to enter and contaminate any grease on the exposed thrust bearing slider into a thick rough goop.

- swing arm clutch fork design inherently applies sideways force to the release bearing as it swings, making the bearing scrape against the slider, made worse by the thick contaminated high-friction dried grease.
on the other hand, a hydraulic clutch release bearing that's fitted in place of the release bearing eliminates this issue cos it pushes the bearing along the shaft equally from all sides without scraping. this would be my ideal conversion.

- clutch cable friction

- longer 200mm clutch PP throw (unloaded -> bite point) requires a longer pedal throw and/or longer release bearing throw = harder pedal

- stiffer PP strains the entire system
 
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
removing the dashboard. came to removing the steering and thought rather than trying to smack or hammer or force the steering off and hurt the steering bearing or end nut, lets make a puller

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made this

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makes it effortless :cool:

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dash out and sigh, I have a huge job :(

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here's the fractured mount. cracked from the crease where the bracket is bent.

DSC09668.JPG
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I'll have to begin removing all the middle heater unit, steering support frame, possibly steering column and wiring to get access to the top bracket area with the stick welder. tis gonna take ages :oops:
 
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
So thats the compromise I suppose you want that style of pedal movement so reinforcement is what's needed.

make it stonger,
lube it better to reduce it happening again,
and/or spend effort to service whenever it begins to show signs of sticking.

I just wish the release bearing slider used linear ball bearings against the input shaft collar to totally eliminate and prevent this type of issue from ever happening again.

201276155311140296.jpg
 

h701micra

Deactivated Account
I use a lithium based multi purpose grease on my clutch realease bearing, never had issues :)
The pressure plate being stronger will have a large effect but my concern would be the need for more travel
Is the pressure plate taller than a standard one? I'd say that puts more load/pressure on your release bearing that burns away your grease over time?

What about the plate between gearbox n engine, do you have that?
 
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
I use a lithium based multi purpose grease on my clutch realease bearing, never had issues :)
The pressure plate being stronger will have a large effect but my concern would be the need for more travel
Is the pressure plate taller than a standard one? I'd say that puts more load/pressure on your release bearing that burns away your grease over time?

What about the plate between gearbox n engine, do you have that?

I got the golden looking halfords Comma multipurpose grease, I thought that wasn't suitable for highly exposed dirty areas like clutch bearing? hesitant to try but I'll give it a go. some sites suggest high temp moly grease?

with the original clutch pedal range, when I adjusted the cable till the arm was just snug theres not enough travel to fully disengage the bite point, but when I adjust till the bite point was just at the bottom, I feared the release bearing would be under constant strain.
so I moved the clutch arm bracket pin closer to pivot for more throw and raised the pedal stopper for more travel range which helped relieve strain on and preserve the release bearing.

annoying splashplate between engine/box is throw out
 

h701micra

Deactivated Account
I've always kept my splash plate on personally. Thinks that's why I don't have many crud issues with the bearing


I remember now about the whole pivot
If it was me I'd move the pedal pivot point and leave the clutch release arm the the standard point

Don't know how possible that is but its an alternative :)
 
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
I've always kept my splash plate on personally. Thinks that's why I don't have many crud issues with the bearing


I remember now about the whole pivot
If it was me I'd move the pedal pivot point and leave the clutch release arm the the standard point

Don't know how possible that is but its an alternative :)

perhaps I shall make a plate that covers the bellhousing gap.

moving the pedal pivot would be more work with it's own issues than shifting the clutch arm pin position.
 
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
removed the steering support and heater fan

DSC09670.JPG


bluetack did a nice job sealing the fan duct

DSC09671.JPG


heater removed for more space

DSC09672.JPG


here's the pedal support

DSC09673.JPG


can see where it began to fracture

DSC09677.JPG


with the old modified pedal measured the movement

DSC09678.JPG


from 6 - 26cm = 20cm pedal travel

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with the normal pedal that chris sent

DSC09683.JPG


its 6 - 22 = 16cm travel

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to reinforce the bulkhead, made a CAD model

DSC09686.JPG


marked on some thick plate, drilled & filed

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flattened the rough hole edge by squeezing with nut & bolt & washers

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and further flattened with the new plate

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a spacer is required to align the bulkhead bracket tube with the pedal arm hook

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without a spacer it would be so misaligned & wear out the cable

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with the new thick plate I'd need to make a 15mm spacer

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now to stiffen the pedal frame, CAD model

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test fit that it clears the speedo cable

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cut, drill & bend metal

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when the pedals full down, the hook just clears the bracing

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added a 3rd bolt for extra support

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welded up. the upper section is very stiff now but the lower section could do with more bracing.

DSC09716.JPG
 
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
more pics of the welded upper end

DSC09717.JPG
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wanna enclose all this open bottom end so gonna remove and relocate the spring hook

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CAD & metal bracket made

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using the base plate to drill the 3rd bolt hole in the bulkhead

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lower end all welded

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testing the new side play and oh yes its as stiff as a rock :cool:

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with the pedal fully down, it just clears the lower bracket

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relocated spring at a better position

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fitted the new assembly onto the bulkhead and even without attaching the top mount it's so solid

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the upper mount required a 30x30x40 box tube. don't have any but rather than buy some, I have some really thick 35x35 L bar to make one.
cut a section off

DSC09731.JPG


will weld em together to trap the nut inside like this. be interesting if I can weld this thick piece onto part of the existing broken bulkhead bracket

DSC09733.JPG
 

h701micra

Deactivated Account
5mm angle onto 1mm sheet should be interesting with a stick welder Paul in that tight a confinement

Personally I'd lop off the old bracket, weld another piece of sheet on the other side of the bulkhead (if plausible) that should stop hole blowing and help with the reinforcement
 
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
5mm angle onto 1mm sheet should be interesting with a stick welder Paul in that tight a confinement

Personally I'd lop off the old bracket, weld another piece of sheet on the other side of the bulkhead (if plausible) that should stop hole blowing and help with the reinforcement

don't wanna weld onto the wipers bulkhead channel when water drains across cos would risk burning off the protective paint leading to faster rust and blowing holes which would allow water in. too much hassle.

welding onto the existing bracket is the safer option. give it a go n see if it sticks
 
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
welded the L brackets, welder likes welding this sorta thick stuff :cool:

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tacked the nut in place

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grinded the sides flat

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trimmed n flattened the existing bracket to hold the new mount.
needs some fine tweaks before welding

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new bearings for pedals arrived

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18x12x4mm flanged bearings

IMAG1347.jpg


fits perfectly. gonna make some spacers out of 14mm tube to fit em precisely

IMAG1346.jpg
 
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
was hoping to make more progress tday to weld the bracket to the chassis but issues get in the way.

to space the bearing from the pedal bracket, no one sells any thin m12 washers so have to make some.
clamped some normal m12 washers on a pillar drill

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after alot of grinding down to the dia of the pipe

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have a set of thin washers

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assembles like this

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tack some washers onto the pedal bracket hole to reduce down to an m12 hole

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I messed up the fitting on the clutch pedal (broke one spacer n chipped a bearing so need more work) but managed to assemble the brake pedal

DSC09749.JPG


fitted the brake and nice, there's absolutely zero sideways play :cool:

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hoping to finish the clutch pedal tomorrow and finally weld the mount onto the chassis. running out of time and could do with less problems.
 
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