I can’t really do very much more at this stage on the steering, as a) I’m waiting for a steering wheel boss and b) I need to ask Andy a question, and he’s gone on a much deserved holiday to Canada with Shona.
So today I cracked on with fabricating the pedals and the foot well. As always I should say that I’m only doing this work, as this is the first development chassis and I knew it was incomplete when Andy and I did the deal. If you buy a spanking new Sabre yours will come all new and resplendent in powder coated loveliness.
One of the things I need to fabricate is a pedal box. I could just go out and buy something like an OBP box, but to be honest I felt I could make something more rigid, plus I’m a cost conscious cheap skate.
Andy fabricates his pedals out of some 1/2 x 2 inch box section, but I’ve always had a hankering for a set of Tilton pedals, not least because they have a neat little milti segment throttle linkage, which allows the rate of throttle application to be varied through the pedal stroke. Both Tim and I have come to the conclusion that mid range throttle granularity is highly desirable…. particularly when racing in the wet, when its really easy to spin up the wheels.
This particular design is also a downward pull type which might help my cable routing too.
So I made a start on the brake pedal assembly. I have a set of old Willwood pedals + balance bar which were fitted to the Genesis,but to be honest I hated them. The pedal pads were all at the wrong angle for my driving position, in fact I think they were designed for a non race car with a normal saloon style seating position. They had been getting stiff before I changed them anyway… so they had languished in the spares box ever since. However what they do have is a very rigid and very light base casting. Unfortunately the steel pivot tube had corroded in the casting so had damaged the bore, so first order of the day was to nock up a little brass bush on the lathe with an 8mm bore. You can see it here in the centre of the Willwood casting, alongside the correded pivot and the pedal I’ll be discarding.
Then I set about mocking up a pedal, this is simply to try and get the proportions and angles correct. My arse is only about 2″ off the floor in the car so the pedals need to be very similar to a formula ford in profile. After a bit of random cutting and welding I’d mocked up a suitable profile, and testing it in the kitchen by sitting on the floor wearing my race boots, indicated that ot would be fine. I’m sure you’ll agree it looks exactly like the Tilton pedals 
. Actually the plan is to transpose the measurements to a cad drawing and get the pedals laser cut from 2mm steel. I don’t like the idea of welds across the load bearing side surface of my brake pedal. I’ll use the same profile for the clutch pedal, although in 1.6mm steel, and then do something different for the throttle.
With progress on the pedals well underway, I really need something to mount them in. The chassis has the floor of the pedal box missing. Actually I think Andy went through a design change after this chassis was built, and this chassis’ front floor features a high pedal section. So I then spent the rest of the afternoon, making a jig for the new floor, and then welding it in place. in this picture everything below the mid rail is new. You can also see the stubs of the transverse bar that I cut out. The whole thing of course needs triangulating and I don’t intend to mount the new pedals on a chipboard shelf, but you get the idea. Luckily the transverse floor bar falls nicely to act as heel bar to brace my feet against. Incidentally the vertical brace is now compromised, so I intend to cut that out too and properly triangulate the aperture in the passenger footwell.
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