Sure no Prob

 

Jeez, you can probably now use the clutch pedal as a lifting point for the whole car!

 

Couple of days back my clutch started squeaking. It broke yesterday while I was waiting in the traffic light! I have around 72K in my car. Anyone knows if I can claim this under powertrain warranty?

 

^ Nope. It's a "wear and tear" item. But be sure to file the NHTSA form.

 

That sucks since its going to cost me around $400. I did file it with NHTSA.

 

Why so much?

 

Done! Let me know if you want me to do anything to it. I also posted the snapped images to give a perspective of before and after.

 

Hmm. That welded pedal isn't done right.

 

Not surprised if you are referring to mine. It was one of the first posted online. Had to start somewhere!

 

Could you then eventually post pictures of a properly welded pedal?

 

/\ this is what I did

 

Brettus, looks like it was reinforced with the weld?

 

not sure what you mean by that . It is reinforced with extra sheetmetal creating a double thickness in the area that fails . It is also welded to the base but that is not where the strength is .

 

I agree. I must have mixed up Don and Brettus, if Brettus could post his in that linked thread as well that would be beneficial.


Looking good.

 

I can take mine down if you like. Don't want you to have the wrong images. Just let me know. NP

Not sure how you got us mixed up. His Avatar is a little more interesting than mine.

 

I may leave it there, I can remove it myself if I change my mind, I may start a gallery of snapped clutch pedal brackets haven't decided.

I have no idea either, I cannot keep track of all 2,000 customers..but then again I could be getting old in my age I was mixing up 2tone and bumblebeerx8 the other day as well...lol

 

Even freaken worst, called the tow truck today, through mazda 24hour roadside assistance. freaken ******* was on the effin phone the whole ******* time. i followed him to the dealership. when he was getting my car off the flat bed. Dumbass forgot to take off the e-brake and put my car in neuatral, ******* left it in first gear. i had to yell at him to stop the ******* truck. i heard some cracking noises in my transmission. i called mazda and told them the problem, they told me any damages they find when they open my transmission he's gonna be liable for it.

 

I agree and love Brettus' welds. Here we welded around 40 pedals in the last 2 years and none of them broke. The point is that it is a very thin plate and it's very easy to weaken with a wrong wire and current
Adding the side reinforcements for lateral movement as per your advice is an added bonus as well.
I'm all in for welding instead of bracketing where it's possible but the shop must know what to do. If I didn't know my mechanic that well i would have bought a bracket instead.

 

The Race Roots bracket provides a similar right angle reinforcement plus a lateral brace for those w/o Brett's sheet metal and welding skills.

 

Okay I don't want to pick on anyone's welding technique, but those welds would never pass muster on an airplane inspection. (Sorry I haven't figured out how to get a pic into the 'text' and not display just as an 'attached thumbnail'). The green arrow in the pic shows closest to what a good weld should look like - the rod adds relatively little material and the two pieces flow into each other. The left red arrow shows an area that airplane builders at least would call "stuck on", and in this case it's hardly even that. See the gap? See how the welded part flowed "onto" the base and not "into" the base? That area has little if any added strength and it's caused by the baseplate not being heated properly, which is hard to do with an electric stick welder. When I was doing welding to aircraft standards, I'd gas weld and heat both of the parts to a cherry red before bringing in the rod which eliminates cold welds like this one. MIG or TIG welding also can solve the problem if set up right, but are expensive. The right-side red arrow shows an area that would probably not be allowed for aircraft either and would be called a stress-riser. Two welds drawn together that closely may cause a high level of built-in stress resulting in reduced fatigue resistance and eventual cracking under vibration.

I only bring this up to say that electric welding thin sheet is tricky and results will vary widely depending on who is doing the work. That's one reason why for the 'average joe', I think the bracket solution is the better one.

 

While I agree that I probably won't let Brett build my SR-71, we are talking about a component that sees very little real stress.

The main thing is to establish a "box", which is something that the OE assembly does not in its native form.

There are plenty of spots on that pedal that needed to have proper penetration and sections that needed to be welded that are not welded at all. But upholding it to aerospace standards are ridiculous in this application.

 

I think we should go with Submarine standards and X-ray every weld, 'cause given all the rain this year one never knows.

 

These simple standards apply to Piper Cubs as well - perhaps even more than something running with a relatively vibrationless turbine engine. I did not say that what was shown will not work, it most likely will. However, since the discussion about the stock clutch mount includes the fact that it also has a safety impact, it also behooves one to get the job done 'right'. The point is that right now, when 58 guys get the thing welded, it gets welded 58 different ways. I suspect some of those ways will work and some will not. Does that induce confidence? Not for me. The RR bracket reinforcement goes on one way. The experience of these 58 guys in the field can be a predictor of the experience of the next 58 and so on.

 

Ah well, that was apparently wishful thinking on my part, as my clutch pedal bracket just snapped

62,000 miles or so. Manual transmission. See pictures. Is this what's happened to everyone else? I don't know what it's supposed to look like, but I somehow doubt that piece of accordian'd metal is supposed to look like that, lol.

I can't wait to do a search and see what this will cost me...

 

Good grief. This is getting ridiculous.