The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Interiors Installing Floor to Pedal linkage Felts

So today I am working on my accelerator pedal and the linkage to the carb. I bought the floor Felts to "seal" and prevent "Squeaks". So I am asking the Great Truck Gods and anyone else with the knowledge that is eluding me. The felts that I have seem to be 2 to 3 times thicker than the housing that they fit into. I am sure that these Felts need to be compressed to be installed but I am not sure what is the best way to go about this. Any and all help will be greatly appreciated!

Brian you just have to press them as flat as possible and work them in the slot. Here are a couple of truths, however: 1. The arc movement of your pedals is not a perfect circle and those pads will wallow out in a short time. The odd travel path ensures it. Even the pads supplied by GM up until around 1976...none of them last very long. 2. Make certain you adjust your pedals so that they travel (as much as possible) in a manner so that they don't strike the metal of the cab (up/down/or side to side). If your pedal bushings are worn out, this will be impossible, but we'll hope yours are in good nick. You can get an idea whether you have a problem by rocking your pedal side to side or up/down. Good luck. I finally made myself a hard plastic piece that sticks to the rod and moves around in the seal slot as the pedal goes in/out. This doesn't help with the noise, but it does stop the air flow.

I just did this job two weeks ago. There is a piece of hard gasket like material on either side of the felt so it can work freely to follow the pedal rod as it moves through its arc. Of course, with the felt supplied for the accelerator pedal there is no way you can keep it compressed between the time you take it out of the vise and the time you try to work it into the slot in the floor. I took a sharp box cutter and sliced mine in about one-third/two-thirds and ended up using the two-thirds piece. Then I oiled it thoroughly and stuck the cleaned accelerator rod through and worked it back and forth. Then tried to move it fore and aft to see if it was free to follow the arc of travel. It was. I won!

Brian, I did this on my ‘52 and ran into the same problem. In my opinion and obviously yours, they need to float in order to move with the rod. I squished in the first one only to find it didn’t move so I figured it would prematurely wear out the felt. It was jammed in there so tight, I didn’t dare to remove it fearing I would have destroyed it. I still need to replace sections of the floor, so I figured I would replace it at that time. I compared it with the original and it was way too thick. I used a utility knife to thin the second one down so it would be snug but still move. Seems like that did the trick.

Good Luck!

So I have been giving this a lot of thought lately. I really appreciate all of the input and I think that I may have come up with a compromise to the "oblonging" problem. So as others have done I am going to slice my felt into thinner layers. Next I am going to "shorten" one side of the square. I may shorten both opposite sides of the square, with one side being shorter than the other. Then I am going to stack them alternately so in the end the two opposite ends look like a "finger joint" as used in wood working. This in theory will allow the felt to "float" while still doing what it was intended. I am hoping to get six layers but I will take 4. Is this more work than it is worth, probably but isn't that why we are all here?

Post some pictures when you get done of you process and finished job.

Phak1 no pictures as this was an utter failure. First, I believe that my theory is solid. The one thing that I didn't look at, or check was the size of the hole in the firewall/floor board. Let me explain. I was able to cut the felt into 6 discs. Trimmed aprox. a 1/4 inch off of the top and bottom of the alternating layers. Up to this point everything is going well. Now to install them. Too much friction to do one at a time. So it was all of them at one time. How? Well I took 2 1.5 inch think metal puddy knives and used them to compress and slide the felts into the holder. Here is where I didn't notice the size of the bottom hole. Everything seemed to be going well. The center hole was a little off center but I figured once I got the rod installed, I could adjust the location. Installed the rod and this is where it goes south. While installing the rod I didn't notice that I pushed 2 to 3 layers of the felts out thru the floor board. The hole in the Floor is larger than the hole in the Retainer. So I will plan on redoing this once I replace the floor sheet metal. So my thoughts going forward. If the hole in the new panel is "too Large" I will either weld in the Flat Fender Washer or just install a Fender washer at the bottom of the felts. May also use some nylon washers at the top and bottom of the stack to ease the install. Thanks to everyone that offered their help/ suggestion.

Sorry to hear it didn’t work out. When I installed mine, the one that I slimed down with the utility knife seems to have worked out fine. Been installed for over a year and still tight to the rod. The original was one piece and worked like that for many years, and like many overseas made parts, need minor adjustment to get them to fit properly. I’m happy with the result.