Here is a picture of the little plastic bushing breaking from the pressure of the clutch pedal spring. It will begin to 'carve' the metal surrounding the spring. The simplest way to fix this is to weld a 14/ steel washer to the inside of the spring on both sides. It will not get through that. Make sure to grease it well because if not it will squeak.

 

As far as the plunger goes... mine would not engage to allow me to crank the car so, i took some 1/4" plexi-glass and carved out the perfect circle to fit to the pedal's side and used some epoxy glue to hold it in place. It works beautifully, rather than bending the metal and pulling the plunger out too far. Just another idea.

 

Just a note to anyone who thinks they broke their 'plunger'...

There's no need to bend the metal holding the green piece. It is safe to just pull the plunger back out.

I almost paid $40 for a new piece, but decided I'd try to pull it out before I went out and bought a new one. It didn't break. Works fine.

 

Thanks for that pic mello.

As for the plastic, everytime I seem to try to fix something plastic it always seems to end up in little piles everywhere, but I did tug on it pretty hard and it didn't move so I just felt if you don't want to chance it the metal is the easiest.

Thanks for sharing your findings also.

Remember that nyc has a thread called WOOOO, CLUTCH PEDAL SNAP OFF, so anyone that has had this happen, please send a pm to him so he can send you instructions on what to do for the nhtsa. Make sure to take tons of pictures on and off the car of the pedal.

 

I finally got around to installing this. Nice kit and easy pedal modification. Of course the real work was getting the pedal back in the vehicle. But now one less reliability item to be concerned about.

 

Hey Huey, got any pictures of it installed.

 

See the last page of the enclosed intall'n instructions for pictures. The kit is actually black painted.

 

Thanks for the picture, does help out quit a bit when you see it installed. I guess the only thing you would have to do after you got that installed would be to weld a small washer around the spring bushing to keep it from digging through the case.

 

I've read this eight times and I still don't get what you're saying. I guess I need a picture.

 

Picture in post 26. Sorry for my riddles, my wife yells at me all the time when I try to describe things. I think of the stuff in my mind, but when I type I forget to put what I'm thinking about and only put some of the stuff I talk about. Think I need a slap in the head from time to time.

 

My pedal is starting to squeak so looks like I will be putting this DYI to use in the near future. Thanks for the write up!

 

My starter interlock switch plunger doesn't seem to want to pull out, but I didn't think to bend the metal tab holding the green plastic pad on the pedal itself. At the moment I have the inoperable switch bypassed with a 16-22 awg spade connector inserted in the cable connector. Many of us must be inadvertently hitting the switch when we do the bracket install.

btw: the shop manual says not to depress the plunger when installing a new one. Damn Ford part!

 

No problem pdxhak, made this so people don't have to waste money and for them to be able to do the work themselves even if they aren't mechanically inclined.

Huey, as for that plunger, I think when I took mine out I squeezed it together, and I also tried pulling it out, but it wouldn't come out and that's why I bent the the tab and bingo. Me and plastic just don't work well together.

If you guys can take pictures and talk to nycgps about the nhtsa for the clutch pedal problems.

 

Since I had the xlock nicely bypassed I figured I had nothing to lose and gave the ol' switch plunger a good squeeze & yank - presto it came out where it should be. Reinstalled the switch and aok. Job done. (but I will keep the spade connector in the glovebox)

 

After watching a Mighty Putty infomercial around 3AM, I have decided to forgo the welding option

 

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Damn you Ren, you bet me to it. Have you seen all there dubs?

 

Yep, I watched all of them a while ago before Billy Mays died, I watched them all again in honor of his death.

 

Yeah, we all watch them again when we found out about his death. How am I going to wake up when I pass out on the couch? He was just like a personal alarm clock. Well at least my grandma can take out the trash, then reach up and grab her stash.

 

Question!!! My clutch has started squeaking about a month ago.. but only does it when the car is still cold.. after about 15mins or so of driving and the car being fully warmed up it stops squeaking. Is that also a sign of my clutch breaking or am I having a different problem?

 

That's a hard question to answer since mine sorta did that when I first got it in winter. What I would do is get under and see if there is any gap in between where the metals meet which will indicate the flexing and how bad it is starting to get. If you are under warrenty I'd get it replaced then have it strengthened, or if you are worried just take it out and have it welded for a piece of mind. Hope this helps with your question.

 

Just did this today, thanks for the DIY write up, it really helped a lot. When I took it out the metal that only had 2 little tack welds on it was definitely starting to pull apart a little. So the welder down the street welded it back up perfectly for $20 so now I know it won't be breaking anytime soon. But the little plastic piece around the spring did break off so I am sure it will start to eat away at the metal soon.

However this did not alleviate my squeaky clutch problem. But I did have the hood open when I was trying to hear where the squeak was coming from, and it sounds just as loud from under the hood as inside the car. It really sounds like it is squeaking from under the hood at the firewall. The squeak is really loud and annoying, but at least now I am not afraid of the pedal breaking off.

 

Good going Decat.

The squeak could simply be the clutch pedal rod interaction with the slave cylinder until it warms up, which might explain why it can be heard from both sides of the firewall (btw: as you know the firewall sheetmetal is incredibly thin so transmitting sound is easy - it could still be interior related). At least you alleviated the bracket potential failure.

 

I'm wondering if that noise we are really hearing is the spring breaking the plastic piece's and digging through the metal. If that's the case then it would probably be easier to tell how bad one of the brackets are. No problem decat, I'm glad this is helping out so much.

 

At the expense of sounding like a tool, especially with that dopey mighty putty video which furthers my hesitation to suggest my idea, anyone try JB Weld or Cold Weld?

I've used Cold Weld before, and that stuff is awesome. Very hard and very permanent. How about just lining the whole bracket with this stuff.