Good morning all, well, I'm torn between where to put the master. Under floor is cool, but residual? valves and the stop light switch along with the prop. Valve are a lot of connections going on under there. Not to mention the door in the floor ! On the firewall means some reinforcement for strength when the deer runs in front and you're at 65 ! BTW it's the pickup in my avatar, 39 Plymouth, Desoto hemi, no hood, at least for awhile. So, any other issues I need to think about in my decision ? Looking forward to hearing everyone's thoughts !
Make your connections right and tight and they'll hang out under your floor worry free. Your truck appears low so access from the top seems important. Make it easy to inspect and you'll probably check it more often ***uming not power brakes?
Manual brakes, dual master . Have a swing pedal ***y. from speedway for the firewall, the truck was set up originally with an underfloor master, but it hung down another 1 1/2 under the frame, so that will have to be raised if I go that way.
I like practicality in a car/truck. I like things that are serviceable to be easily accessible so I like the master on the firewall. I don't care for hiding parts just for looks. But both of my 30s vehicles though have the master under the floor. It makes the firewall clean but I don't really like it there and will probably change both of them some day. My 2¢
Any suggestions on how much bracing to eliminate firewall flex if on firewall ? Swing pedal I have now has 4x4 plate on end for master and other end will bolt to bottom edge of dash . Was thinking of some 16 ga welded to inside firewall with some small angle running from left to center of firewall . Overkill ? I have seen a truck that when the pedal was mashed the firewall flexed TOO much for me !
Most firewalls really need a piece of plate, 10 gauge would work better then 16, about 6x6 or 8x8 on the back side of the firewall. Your actual peddle mount should be hung from a support that goes from the dash to the firewall and still have the plate, but some just bolt directly to the firewall. On an old heap I usually like to build a cowl hoop and hang everything from the hoop. But that is just me. I am using an under floor setup on my A, I have everything here so it is a no brainer, if I were not going to do that I would think about a Tilton floor mount, or a similar setup. This one is actually a little on the modern side if you look around you can find them a little more aesthetically pleasing.
Thanks for the input ! That floor mount looks sweet. Sorry I'm not sure what a cowl hoop is , but sounds interesting . If you have time could you describe or have a pic of that ? Appreciate your time !
I did a firewall mount on a Brookville bodied deuce last year and in addition to a 1/4" 4130 plate mount for the masters that sat flush with the inner firewall surface I ran a 1" square tube across the firewall between the flanges where the cowl top meets the sides and tied it into the bolts there with 1/8" 4130 brackets. The tube was attached to the master cylinder mounting plate and then I added additional square tubing back to the base of the dash to tie into the steering column mount. The pedal box (the same as in porkn******'s photo but inverted) tied all of the square tubing together as well as I placed the tubes to pick up on the mounting lugs. The square tube on the firewall is a little hard to see in this photo as I attached a hinge to it as the forward mount for a panel that mounts the fuse block etc. The trailing edge of that panel attaches to the round tube that follows the lower dash contour. A cowl hoop is usually a horseshoe/U shaped tube that runs up from the frame, across the cowl and back down to the other frame rail. To be really effective it needs to either be tied to the cowl/firewall and/or have gussets/brace tubes to support the fore/aft load of the pedals. Roo
It is a piece of tubing that is bent to run from one frame rail to the other under your cowl behind the firewall. This is a cowl hoop on a dragster ch***is, forget about the rest of the ch***is and apply it to whatever car you would like.
In a perfect world...One could lay frame, and not get slandered by the 'Vintage Corps'. In the real world, better not. The sanitary flat-bottom setup Benno illustrated is the absolute in 'above floor' gendre. I used a similar design in my channeled '30 Cabriolet, (dropped 6" over Deuce rails! I should have been scolded!) But I made it work, here's how: I made a 'U' bracket, from 1/4" wall 2" X 4" channel, 8" long. Laid the channel below my flat floor, (1/8" sheet underneath, about 12" X 18", just 'armor' bracketing) The channel was bored thru laterally, at the rear, for a bolt that would mount the '54 Ford swing pedals (upside down) with reshaped/shortened arms... Linkage for clutch and master went forward, drilled the arms 1.5" off the fulcrum point (that's the thru bolt that pedals mounted to) Clutch pushrod went to a '54 Ford bellcrank that mounted on the frame rail, and a bracket from my channel; brake master was ahead of the pedal arm, push rod went straight to it. (about 6" rod) This put everything 'above board' The pedal arms operated thru slots cut in the floorboard, very sanitary. (I was careful to use the '54 pedal pads, so the Genuine Ford Parts were visible...) At the time, however...(1958) I would have used something from Moon, Hildebrandt, or Crager... (I hadn't grown a soul yet!)
In my '57 Chevy pickup I drove it with the stock master cylinder for years which was under the floor. The rod end faced forward and that collected a bunch of crud and was tough on the boot as I was driving it year 'round in northeastern Indiana. I got tired of dealing with that and don't like the access. I have moved it up to the firewall using a Corvette style manual version so it looks old school with a twin cylinder for safety. It has a 3/16" steel plate reinforcing it behind the firewall. I did a swing pedal for it and the clutch is activated using the stock set up. A little funky looking but matching pedal pads helps that out.
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