brake and clutch pedals

Hi All,

We are still working through our build and looking for brake/clutch pedals. We have found wilwood ones but this would require modification to our T5 transmission from clutch cable to hydraulic which is another $600 - $700 for the conversion. The issue appears to be with the stock wilwood pedals not allowing for the mounting of a quadrant (what the clutch cable would hook into).

SOOOO, we have considered purchasing a new aluminum quadrant, longer steel shaft and modifying the pedal to allow for mounting of a quadrant. OR, Factory Five Racing offers a complete roadster brake, clutch kit, with quadrant which could work for $725.00 but no guarantee it would work with our setup.

What have you guys used for pedals?

Thanks in advance.

Have you considered just using a slave cylinder for the T5 hydraulic clutch?  The late 80's Camaro/Firebird's with the T5 used an external slave cylinder and a conventional throwout bearing and arm.  It might require a little creative bracketry, but should be doable fairly easy.  Might even require changing the throwout bearing arm.

Here's the Camaro part:

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Couldn't find the bore size on this one.

There are other external slave cylinders available, too.  Seems to me some early to mid-60's GM trucks used an external hydraulic slave on the clutch.  They had a funky dual master cylinder that contained both the brake and clutch masters.  

Yep here is the GMC part:

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It appears to need a 1 1/8" bore master cylinder (that is the bore of the GMC master) and that is available from Wilwood.

The GMC part is cast iron.  That's the one I would use, since the Camaro part is plastic.

Just my opinion, but if you can sort out the brackets, you would be a lot of money ahead as well as making everything a lot simpler.

Just in case you don't know how these parts work. The external slave cylinder would mount (solidly) to the bellhousing in such a way that the slave cylinder push rod could push on the throwout bearing arm. Just like a conventional mechanical linkage would. I can't help you with specifics as I'm not there to see what you're dealing with.

FWIW - The GMC part has been used for a loooong time on hot rods.  The original American Graffiti coupe used both the GMC master and clutch cylinders.  Just some useless trivia!

Hi Hotrod,

Thanks for the details, always thorough!! So after many calls to Wilwood, McLeod Racing and others we think we have an optimal solution.

The problem is the T5 transmission uses a cable and leaver, the problem with a side mount slave cylinder is it doesn't have enough power to move plats to the necessary travel, so scrap that idea.

Second problem wilwood pedals WILL NOT fit a quadrant, so scrap that idea with respect to cable clutch wilwood pedals.

The only solution we found is to tear out the clutch leaver and throwout bearing, replace with a McLead 1430 hydraulic throwout bearing mounted directly onto the shaft, connect to the wilwood Mastercylinder with a 3/8 bore and 6:1 ratio and voila we have saved some weight and can use a pretty cool setup with our T5 transmission..

Although did cost, just shy of $600.00 when all said and done....phew.

Looks like a little info on this page:

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I might have been wrong on the master bore size. They recommend a 1" bore size on that page.

Looks like we were both typing at the same time. Glas you got it sorted out. The hydraulic throwout bearing is the modern way to go, definitely. Only downside is that the trans has to come out if the hydraulic portion fails.

Cheers Hotrod. Appreciate the feedback. We decided seeing as this was a brand new build from a kit ordered back in 1989 we'd start fresh and do it from the ground up right first time. Taken longer than we thought, but pleased with the progress.

I intend to share a lot of pictures of the build from the time pulled the kit out of an old storage unit to the finished product.