I had plans to get more done today but I started looking for some things in the shop and it was obvious that I need to do some straightening up before I could proceed. So I made a small dent in the messy shop after a few hours which left me just a few hours to work on the truck.
I installed the brake pedal and master cylinder, steering column & wheel and the seat so I could sit in the cab and see if I could assess where the gas pedal needed to be mounted. I was hoping that I would not have to redo the brake pedal and luckily it was in a good position.
I sat in the seat and took a marker and scribed where my shoe felt comfortable on the firewall. I then centered the pedal onto the footprint. I again lucked out and the place where the pedal base needed to be mounted to the firewall was in a flat location right next to the reworked hump portion of the trans tunnel. The only immediate issue that I saw was that the pedal needed be to elevated/offset from the firewall so the pedal had enough room to articulate properly.
I grabbed some 1-1/2” square tubing and cut it into a u-shaped configuration an inch high and then drilled it to the match the pedal mount and welded some 1/4-20 nuts on the backside. I then covered the seat and shifter with a welding blanket and wrapped the brake pedal with aluminum foil so I could tack in into place. I'll final weld it in place and closeout the top and bottom when I weld the rest of the firewall... after I remove the body from the chassis in the future.
The only other thing that I may need to address is that it looks like the throttle cable will need pass thru one of the u-channels on the interior of the firewall. If I can get it to align with the center of the channel then that will be no problem. If not, then I might need to tweak the channel a bit. Hopefully my luck holds up.
1949 Chevy Panel Truck A Project Journal I'm old but I make up for it by being immature.
