Brake Pedal to Gas pedal clearance

[Pat Landymore]

Long story short this has always concerned me a bit. I’ve narrowed my trans tunnel, offset the brake pedal pad and have been very careful when moving my truck around.

The big problem is I have size 13 feet and I wasn’t careful enough!

This morning when moving my truck out if the garage for painting the fenders my brake foot...just caught the edge of the gas pedal. I pressed harder which of course increased throttle.... Managed to tag my fuel pump cut off switch just in time so no damage was done, but it definitely spooked me!

1) Has anyone else had this problem?

2) What approaches did you take to mitigate?

3) I recall there was one truck builder who used a firewall mounted master cylinder. If you’re still on the forum, could you please tell me more about how that workEd out and what your brake/gas clearance is.

Thanks!
Pat

[bnelson]

Long story short this has always concerned me a bit. I’ve narrowed my trans tunnel, offset the brake pedal pad and have been very careful when moving my truck around.

The big problem is I have size 13 feet and I wasn’t careful enough!

This morning when moving my truck out if the garage for painting the fenders my brake foot...just caught the edge of the gas pedal. I pressed harder which of course increased throttle.... Managed to tag my fuel pump cut off switch just in time so no damage was done, but it definitely spooked me!

1) Has anyone else had this problem?

2) What approaches did you take to mitigate?

3) I recall there was one truck builder who used a firewall mounted master cylinder. If you’re still on the forum, could you please tell me more about how that workEd out and what your brake/gas clearance is.

Thanks!
Pat

I'm dealing with same thing. Although my feet nowhere near size of yours!. I'm looking at just doing some mods to the lever to move over a bit. I'm running auto so plenty of room.

[cob427sc]

I've thought about this idea and wondering if anyone has tried it. If you are running an auto transmission, how about moving the brake pedal and master to the clutch pedal position? This would gain several inches of side foot room.

[Pat Landymore]

Thats an interesting idea that I’ve also had as I’m running a Powerglide.

But I (perhaps incorrectly) saw two issues:

1) the c-c distance between the LH master cyl and the clutch cyl are not the same as between the two master cyls.

2) I believe that placement would land the pedal arm right in the path of the steering shaft..

But still its a great idea.

I’m considering drafting up my own custom pedal arm out of bar stock aluminum and putting a bend in it so I use the standard upper positioning for the master cyls and then the bend will clear the steering shaft and give me the foot position I need.

But there are likely other-better ideas yet.
Thanks again!
Cheers,
Pat

[Bill_VA]

Easy solution - narrow shoes. The pedals in my FFR Cobra are close together and the first time out as a go-cart with tennis shoes on scared the crap out of me when I hit more than one pedal at a time. I wear either a pair of Puma sport shoes or a pair of "driving" loafers.

[NAZ]

Pat, I run the brake pedal where you would normally see a clutch pedal. This is typical of a drag car with an auto, pedals are separated by a goodly distance. I can drive the car with my size 10 jump boots which are rather wide boots.
136948 Sorry, I've tried to attach this file five times now and can't get it show upright.

[VIRGIN MIKE]

Don't even think about driving with filp flops

[Pat Landymore]

Good suggestion re shoes and flip flops, but generally for drives longer than 15 minutes I take my right shoe off.

I have lots of foot spasms due to a stroke a few years ago and sock feet help with that a lot.

NAZ: I took a look at doing that (moving the pedal into the clutch position) but the c-c distance between clutch MC and the two for the brakes are different. Suppose I could fab up an adapter plate...? In the end I’m fairly certain I’ll be selling the truck in the spring and moving on to another project. Likely how I have it now will be fine for the new owner.

Pat

[NAZ]

I failed to mention that I replaced the pedal assembly that came in the kit with a Wilwood stand alone balance bar brake only assembly. Fabricated a new mounting bracket that moved the brake pedal to the left as far as practical and use left foot braking. This is typical of a drag race car -- brake with your left foot.

But if you're planning to sell soon, don't bother with mods -- you won't get any $$ out of them and the next guy may not appreciate the work required to make the mod.

[RuffShod]

I can drive the car with my size 10 jump boots which are rather wide boots.
.

Airborne!!!

[bnelson]

I just finished up my trans tunnel and got everything situated. I gained a bunch of space and testing it (on jack stands) I have plenty of room. I wear cowboy boots 99.9 percent of the time and testing with boots had no issues. With auto I cant see how anyone couldn't make adjustments to get clearance. With Manual a little more challenging but from my trial and error absolutely possible to take the oh crap out of the spacing. Can still get some more but will wait till I get the carpet in.

137103137104137105

[chuck35truck]

Long story short this has always concerned me a bit. I’ve narrowed my trans tunnel, offset the brake pedal pad and have been very careful when moving my truck around.

The big problem is I have size 13 feet and I wasn’t careful enough!

This morning when moving my truck out if the garage for painting the fenders my brake foot...just caught the edge of the gas pedal. I pressed harder which of course increased throttle.... Managed to tag my fuel pump cut off switch just in time so no damage was done, but it definitely spooked me!

1) Has anyone else had this problem?

2) What approaches did you take to mitigate?

3) I recall there was one truck builder who used a firewall mounted master cylinder. If you’re still on the forum, could you please tell me more about how that workEd out and what your brake/gas clearance is.

Thanks!
Pat

Pat,

My feet are only size 12 and I had that problem. I moved throttle pedal over closer after moving the trans cover. It works better for me. I saw where someone put a small indentation in the trans cover to give some extra room. That was my next step if I needed more room.

[Pat Landymore]

Thanks for your ideas.
For background info:
I’ve moved my transmission tunnel in so tightly against the Powerglide that I had to make a box for the trans shift linkage to fit around 😳

After offsetting the brake pedal pad, the gas pedal arm was ‘S’ bent to increase clearance.

For those that aren’t aware, my choice of big block Chevy severely limits where I can place the gas pedal due to the location of the cable exiting on the other side of the firewall. Almost everywhere hits the back of a cylinder head.

Yes, I could have raised the engine. Yes I could have put the engine further forward. But I didn’t. Why? I made my decisions based on keeping the engine weight low and to the rear of the chassis.

It’s good enough at this point for me even with runners on...provided I’m careful of my foot position. For most others, no problemo.

Thanks again to all for their comments and suggestions!
😁