But the myth about the weld continues.

Look Ray, my car is over six years old. I see no flex in that bracket when I press the pedal. The welds are still intact and there is no sign of stress in the firewall area. All three bolts are tight. It will never fail in the way some have. The only way I can explain those very few percentage of cases where those failures have occurred is that the bolts either loosened or were not properly tightened at the factory.

If I had a nickel for every time I heard someone say they saw a significant improvement for what in actual fact is an insignificant or unnecessary modification......

And the fluid mod -- Although in my opinion it is a more "strengthening" based approach, it is way overkill. And both approaches focus on strengthening an area that should not be put under significant stress in the first place.

 

I'll add my 2 cents on this topic...
The known stress/fracture point against the firewall appears to be caused by the top assembly twisting.
My thought was that this is caused when the pedal is pressed all the way down.

If you look behind the pedal's foot pad you'll see a block (roughly 1" I think) attached to the arm, this is a hard stop for the pedal stroke against the firewall.
If you look at the width of this hard stop against the pedal pad, its less than 1/4 the width of the pad.
So picture this... take a triangle and put a pointed end on the firewall, then take your foot and put it on the other (flat) side of the triangle.
You'll have a difficult time keeping that triangle centered.
Same thing is occurring with the pedal's side-to-side play, the thinner hard stop is hitting the firewall and your wider foot is causing the assembly to twist one side or the other.
This constant twisting over time will weaken the metal and cause a fracture at the top.

This could be why we see this occur more with people who auto-x/track since they are beating the hell out of the pedal.
If the hard stop was a little wider, it'll prevent the assembly from twisting when the pedal is pressed down to the firewall.
I've even noticed that the markings on my firewall where the hard stop hit was at least 1/2" apart (going off of memory) from one mark to the other, so I know that it isn't hitting in the same place repeatedly.

 

Del, first of all, metal is not a rigid material. It will always flex under load whether you can see it or not. Second, you could have every nut torqued to its maximum on that bracket from day one and it wouldn't save you. Look at the picture in post #567 in this thread. It illustrates how a normal load on the pedal serves to tear the metal right around the nut. The easiest solution is a well-placed seam weld.

 

over six years old, how many miles? and how often do you drive it? how often do you shift? do you drive in the city or ?

Bolt's Torque has nothing to do with this whole bracket snapping issue. take the bracket to any well known welder, first thing they will say is "wtf".

Just wait till yours snap. hope your gears will not be locked + driving on a highway.

 

One good point would be that when the metal was pressed that maybe some came out thinner then others. I have worked in powdered metals and sheet metal companies for years, and when QC kicks into some of the places I worked they said ship'em. We've made brake pedals for Harley and others and they would go out of size and the bosses would say keep it going and if it gets bad then shut it off, which I would adjust the press and sort through the containers getting out all the bad ones, but they would throw them back in saying they are good, which then I would quit my job and go find another.

Regardless though, the bracket is not strong enough and with all the different driving styles of people, some break some don't. I press a little to the right when I shift since I'm 6'1", and my wife pushes sorta straight on since she's short. With that said though pushing a clutch in most of the time regardless is really never straight on. The welds work, fluids bracket works, and the stock bracket fails end of story.

Sorry if I sound like a dick, but to many people are having problems with this, and in my situation when it broke I almost got hit by a damn coal truck with my kids in the back.

 

lets just hope the investigation goes well and force Mazda to use better than scrap metals and bare minimum welding point for the clutch bracket.

 

I hear ya on that.

 

Please Sticky this post ?

 

This is getting out of hand!! I've read about atleast 4 different people with this problem over the last week or so... come on now.. let's go further.

 

http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2009...-150-air-bags/

They just issued the official statement today. Thank you.

IF you know anybody who had this issue before, rather it was replaced under warranty or not, Report them all to NHTSA. Have a photo of the bracket if possible. if it was fixed under warranty, scan the copy of the invoice, and get ready to send it over to the agent. (PM me for information)

 

https://www.rx8club.com/showthread.p...14#post3263514

 

Im thinking. Mazda might need a lawsuit before they will do anything.

They should really learn a thing or 2 from Toyota. Its really hard to proof the floor mat caused the accident, and Toyota knows it. but couple million dollars is still much cheaper than any class action lawsuit.

 

Wowww I totallllly missed that.. FINALLY. I'm sure it is WAY more then 40 people.

 

mines broke las weeken again after being replaced by the dealer last year, now my dealer won't replaced it agian. Mazda need to get their **** together wit this issue, see my signature link for my story

 

Hey nycgps, thanks for your help i just filled out the nhtsa complaint

 

if you have the broken bracket around, you might want to keep it and take a lot of pictures.

If you want I can pm you the agent handling this case, so you can forward him all the pictures of your broken bracket.

 

have anyone driving 09's had this issue?

 

Pretty sure im going to join this club fairly soon. Will try to take pictures asap.

 

Not yet ------------------------ But I can tell you we have the Same bracket, which is FE05-41-300C

So eventually, it WILL happen to 09+ owners.

Before Mazda willing to do anything about it, we all should pray no one will ever get hurt by this stupid issue ...

 

ok so first it's check the floor mats and either pull them back or remove them...now it's the clutch pedal. scary ****, people.

 

my floor mat never give me any problem. the hook its doing its job.

 

Floor mat? That's a new one on me.

 

My clutch pedal will kinda move a little bit when I press down on it, as if I put one of those cheap crap auto zone pedals over my real one, I hope that isnt the beginning of a snapping clutch pedal.

 

Before my clutch pedal broke, I thought I just sucked at driving stick in the 8', or that the clutch was just not to my liking.

Come to find out the bracket was flexing, and when engaging the clutch pedal it wouldn't engage 'dead-on'. It eventually broke. Reinforced the bent and twisted assembly with the Fluid bracket, and now I don't suck any more!

 

Yea wow that kinda sounds like what Im going thru except I knew I didnt suck and shifting lol