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

Exactly. I’ll remove the current brake pedal (they’re all separate), put it in a box on the shelf in the garage. One of the two I’ve bought from eBay can be modified and installed and then removed as/when I sell it. Nothing is changing for the throttle other than location - the pedal itself won’t be altered.

People convert 911 turbos to RWD because the centre diff can’t handle higher power and the geometry of the front uprights is less than ideal in order to accommodate drive shafts, so if you remove them you can swap to GT3/997 C2 uprights as well as not wrecking the front drive components.

At the expense of increased traction, then it would alter the weight balance. But easy and cheap way to shed a few pounds

@christianSpaceman I did know that people did that to lambos. Seem odd as may years ago discussed making a mk1 escort in to 4x4, as we were running a type 9 so seems an odd idea to me.

So far 2nd hand engine parts/complete engines are alot cheaper in the Germany and France. Wonder what will happen post brexit....

Cheeky sod. Don’t you know I’m a French peasant with a knackered old Focus now?

Also pedals: I’d get something CNC machined as it’s a safety concern. Or move my legs over slightly.

All this engineering talk. More tales of defeating Fiat 500s plz.

I advise @Dammit to move his legs over 7 cm and make an appointment with a couple doctors (psychiatrist and orthopedics).

.

13 Attachments

I think this is straightforward.

Genuinely hard times for the toffs, or are rat Bentley's a thing now?


And these are a rare sight these days, a nice Ford Zephyr 6.

are rat Bentley's a thing now?

Bentleys no, Rolls yes

https://youtu.be/Ujf3G9rN2zI

Patina

I would be very wary of modifing that arm as it is just a pressed bit of with bit of a lip either side giving it strength.

Was trying to find photos of metal brake arms with a bend in them, this is from a land rover defender note the thinkness of the metal . This is fitted to the land series 2 https://www.handhsurplus.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/DSCN16931.jpg and this arm is a u shape.

Might be best to speak to people that make rally brake boxes and get a thicker arm made.

That does make sense. Not designed for torsional strength

Perhaps you could work up a regime of rigorous calisthenics and bespoke orthopaedic footwear to solve this issue and potentially offer them to other E63 owners in a similar vein as your 996 venture?

Spent a boring day, breaking lockdown too, surveying bits of engine bits in boxes...still not sure what engine bits are reusable. Three pistons and four conrods, as they were checked...I have the recipes but no idea which four, then with four pistons. At least the blocks and crank are fine. No idea what gearbox bits are reusable as none of the gears look damaged, none of the links look damaged either. The turbos are missing, the turbo (1) in the boxes are not from the car.

Once again proof I and fucking stupid and seem to collect projects under the it is cheap and I can have a silly car and them sell it and it just a bit of my time. At least I finished the panda...in many more months that the initial plan. Wonder if I will finish the MR2...

Is that to me?

No idea of the calculations or correct materials, just going on what car makers have done. Am working on the premis that the manufacturer knows what they are doing.

You joke but back, knee and hip pain is annoying/distracting on long journeys. Then the limping afterwards.

I'm curious as to how these manufacturers can build such crap ergonomics into their cars. You'd think a Bahnstorming E63 would be designed for long distance comfort? I hate the half splayed position or weirdly skewed position - My Audi does it, there's a lump in the side of the gearbox that pushes the left leg into a weird angle in the footwell. It's not there on the passenger side which means the car was optimised for LHD - after 2 or 3 hours I get a terrible pain in my left leg/lower back.

The shape and construction of that brake pedal is a bit annoying to modify.

You might be better off designing a fabricated pedal arm from scratch and replacing the whole thing, and just welding the MB pad on the bottom.

.

I reckon match a piece of tubes OD to the maximum width of the arm just below the point that the sensor mounts, get a hole saw of that same size and go through the arm perpendicular to the long axis, weld in the tube and weld on the lower section of the arm to the left. Garnish with gussets.

But I’m not doing this, I’m shipping the pedals up to Craig at DynoTorque and he’s doing it, so up to him. Brake pedals are peak loads of around 100kg in emergency situations, so we can hang that on it to test.

@gbj_tester - what do you reckon?

Seems valid.

I'd be tempted to start the mods as close to the pivot as possible. Getting it strong enough is trivial. Making it stiff enough will be the harder part. If you just cantilever off the end of the existing pedal arm you might well find that the pressed steel part twists and flexes as it's not designed to be stiff for offset loads.