Car appreciation... the aesthetics, the engineering, etc

I would inform your insurance of your intentions. If they inspect it after a smash and a mod exists of which they were not informed, it could be a world of pain.

There’s a small arm welded onto the main arm which holds the brake actuation sensor, which you’d need to leave in place. The arm is ~50mm wide at that point so I’d go through it with a 50mm hole-saw and then weld in a tube with a 50mm OD and a wall thickness that matches the main pressed steel arm- which looks to be around 1mm.

The length of tube is going to have to be around 100mm to move the lower brake arm 80mm to the left.

I reckon a 50mm dia tube is going to be pretty stiff, and you could up the wall thickness to say 2mm for the sake of “nuke it from orbit”. Then gussets.

Just to go maximum Blue-Peter

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50.8 x 2.64 is a standard CDS tube size, there’s not much below that unless you want a tube with a seam in it

The order of those came out a little screwy, but the bog-roll inner is ~50mm diameter and just over 100mm in length, so it's very close to the dimensions of the tube I'm thinking of using.

The circle marked on the arm is where I'd go through it with the hole saw, should give plenty of surface area to weld the arm onto the tube as the arm would go round half of the tube from each direction, if that makes sense.

I think a 50mm tube would be pretty stiff, but I'd plate the ends and add gussets to stiffen things up further.

If anyone knows of a pedal fabrication specialist please shout out.

Alfaholics is the first call I make when I win the lottery, no competition, Chris Harris's video is awesome, he spends 5 mins absolutely spunking himself silly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BuZmJmpTdk

In my experience Volvo are the only co which takes ergonomics seriously

need to work harder to buy manjazz

The stiffness of the bit you suggest adding is one question, but the stiffness of the original retained pedal arm is another. It doesn't look like it will enjoy the resulting torsion from the offset pedal as others have said.

The pivot point? Bear in mind that whilst the design has to (for obvious reasons) accommodate potential peak loads - lets say 150kg in an accident - it's a passenger car, not a race car, so it's heavily servo-assisted, and peak loads during normal operation are going to be very light.

You give it a bit of a shove to actuate the "hold" function, but even then it's a firm press rather than "stand on the pedal whilst praying".

I've no idea of the specific loadings etc, I just mean you're proposing something very stiff be attached to something very compliant (all relative). So the whole system will still be compliant.

I just had a chat with a place that makes pedal boxes for rally-cars, they reckon it's pretty straightforward, they'd just want to make sure that overall strength wasn't a concern, so T45, higher wall thickness than you might think etc.

What will it do to your insurance?

Not sure, until I've got something more concrete than just measuring pedals I've not spoken with them. I'd imagine they'd treat it in the same way as they would if I'd mounted that second throttle pedal that someone linked earlier, or modified the car for hand controls due to a morphological requirement.

My partner was in a minor crash on her bike and ended up damaging a car. I think the left light cluster is Mercedes part A2579062800, does anyone know if just the glass can be replaced or does the whole assembly come as one?

Any ideas on what labour would be to replace it?

We're waiting to hear back from the driver with a quote from a garage but I'm hoping to work out a ballpark cost before this.

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It will be a single sealed unit.

that sucks. i hope she is okay.

Thanks, thought it probably would be.

Is this a fairly straight forward job to swap the unit for a new one? I'm hoping labour costs won't be too crazy but I'm braced for a fairly punchy invoice, the part alone is €300.

Why couldn't it have been a Honda Jazz...

Thanks Jonny, she's a bit sore today but nothing serious, bike is in one piece and thankfully everyone involved was calm/civil at the time.

It’s a little hard to say, the physical swap should be straightforward - but it might need coding.

Give Terry a call at Wayne Gates Mercedes, explain the situation and ask for an indicative quote.

If the owner wants it done at an MB dealer it could be expensive - they charged me £500 to fit a battery.

Great, thanks. I'll give him a call

Just a thought, but rather than modifying the pedals, could you modify the footwell - e.g. have an adaptor plate made up that attaches where the pedals normally sit, onto which new pedal attachments are fixed for your desired position?

I’d need to change where the master cylinder sits, which would mean putting a new hole in the firewall and lots of related buggering about. Altering the dimensions of the pedal arm is the least work/least invasive thing to do, and required zero chassis modifications- literally bolt in/bolt out.

Why not just buy a modern alfa/sports car?

The amount of mods that car has had, does it matter that it is a step front gta?

That's what I was thinking looking at the video. Is that not an original chassis though, the way it squats under power is incredible, reminds me of a sports bike. Lovely balanced car but couldn't help thinking any shell on that and it would still be awesome.