Sunday 8 July 2012

Pedals

The fitting of the brake and clutch pedals id covered by one of the few information downloads from the Kitspares download area. The theory is not complicated: locate the plastic bushes into the pedals and the chassis, and add a pivot bar and spacer. In practise, what can seem like a simple job actually tasks a few hours to perform.
I order to locate the plastic bushes in the pedals, you first need to clean the powder coat from the inside of the pedal casings. A barrel sander and some manual emery sanding did the job. Then you need to ease the plastic bushes into the casing with the aid of copper grease (or alternative lubricant) making sure that they go in square. After trying a G-Clamp I eventually opted for a my vice to do this.
For the chassis bushes, I obviously couldn't use the vice so I used a nut and bold and some penny washers. This was not as easy as the vice but slowly and carefully I eventually eased the two bushes into place.
The real issue with this piece of the build was the steel rod that acts as the pivot for the pedals. This is slightly too big in diameter for easy assembly of the pedals and movement of the pedals once assembled. Unless you have a lathe, it's pity much an hour or so with emery paper rubbing away a few thousandth of an inch to get a better fit. I have left the fitting quite tight as I expect the joints to get easier over time. 

Looking at the clearance between the pedals and the steering shaft, I think it looks OK. 


Murray has just lost the Wimbledon single s final. :-(


My youngest daughter had a laptop for her birthday recently, so I re-built her old desktop for use in the garage. I have been using it to follow blogs, but it's also capable of watching Andy Murray this afternoon whilst I was reducing the pedal bar with emery paper.

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