Projects Damn my knees, manual transmission is a killer

A lot of interesting posts here about assisted clutches, etc. But I found that it was the amount of times I had to shift and use the clutch, regardless of the pressure, caused my problems. One car I sold had very low pedal pressure. Surprising how many shifts are made in a day of driving - it adds up to a repetitive stress injury.

 

Seems like whatever the issue was the other night, it's diminished quite a bit. I'm not naive enough to believe that it's gone, by any means. At least I don't feel like I'm going to fall down just walking. I will get a knee wrap/brace thing, though. I'm going to take a chance with the Galaxie before I go to work today.

 

I want all these servo motors, linear actuators, switches and solenoids to be in my new knee, not the clutch setup.

 

I had a '64 Ford with a monster clutch in it years back, my left thigh had a lot more muscle than the right. The clutch in my current Ford, much easier to work. I'll have to see how many times I press the pedal just going to the gym and back, must be like 250 x if I cut through town.

 

This is going to be an interesting exercise. Looks like I will be using the Aussie sourced PBR VH44 remote brake booster for the hydraulic clutch......



Cannot seem to find one with large enough slave cyl. dia. for the brakes though. So I located a remote mount hydro-vac unit for 1963 - 1964 Chevy C50 2 ton truck and will run a 1-1/8" brake master cylinder in my '57 Chevy sedan......



Hoping this will address clearance issues and that adding a booster to both the brakes and hydraulic clutch setup will keep pedal pressure low enough to allow retaining a manual transmission in the car. Even with bad knees.

The 292 inline 6 I am building is cammed for low to mid-range power, so it should make good manifold vacuum, but with 2 vacuum boosters to supply, it probably wouldn't hurt to add a vacuum storage canister and vacuum pump as well.

Just need to figure out where to put the remote boosters and vacuum storage canister now. Have a new electric Cadillac vacuum pump like those used on old circle track cars around here somewhere.

Maybe some of this can be mounted in the trunk on the shelf above the rearend. I usually install a modified '62 - '64 Chevy gas tank as an auxilliary tank there when I build a '55 - '57 Chevy. Will need to see how it all works out. If the tire well is removed, a larger gas tank from a Ford van can be installed under the trunk floor, but I am not sure if I want to do that, as I would then need another place for the spare tire.

I am also rebuilding and adapting a T-85N 3-speed overdrive Ford truck transmission with 2.99 1st gear ratio for the Chevy and this will allow shifting without the clutch once car is moving (when OD is engaged)......



This will be a road car used occasionally for towing a boat and trailer. That's why I am building the mechanicals like a truck.

Will let you know how it works out.

Happy Motoring,

Harry

 

Have an original Z bar set up on the Comet and that is definitely not light, but before going into the type of mods people listed here I'm going to recon the whole linkage using roller bearings instead of the plastic ones and replace the Beck/Long clutch with a diaphragm one (which I need to do anyway for the 3 to 5sp conversion). I suspect a lot of the issues are because of worn out bits + the Beck/Long design.

Oh: we should start a thread about back problems too, lol.

 

Couple years ago I switched from the B&B '62 Corvette pressure plate to raised finger diaphram '66 Impala pressure plate , I didn't feel any perceptible difference in pedal pressure and the diaphram needs about 1" additional pedal travel to fully dis-engage (6 : 1 pedal linkage)

 

I hear ya on the back! And knees. And right shoulder. And neck. Hey...... I thought this getting old thing was supposed to be a gradual process...... Not an event!

The clutch I ran during the late '70s in the Poncho powered '56 Chevy in my avatar was an 11" McLeod B&B/Long. They took a Borg & Beck pressure plate and put the fingers from a Ford Long style pressure plate in it and it had great clamping force but wasn't hard to push down. I would say it was about as easy to push down as an OEM (not a performance) type diaphragm clutch. I think McLeod still makes them. If they do, I am going to use one of them in the '57...... Either that, or I'll see if I can squeeze a 12" diaphragm clutch from a Chevy truck in there (this will require dropping the cast-iron bellhousing, for a 12" pressure plate won't fit through the inspection plate hole at the bottom of a '57 bellhousing).

Yes, rebuilding the OEM clutch linkage using bearings in lieu of bushings and adding heim joints at rod ends should help a lot. I plan on doing as much of that as I can when relocating my brake master cylinder and retro-fitting the hydraulics from a Jeep for the clutch setup. A bonus from all this work...... Deep sixing the mechanical clutch linkage should allow more precise adjustment and control of the clutch, as the linkage will no longer move around and bind at some of the pivot points such as the bellcrank when the engine torques over on the engine mounts during hard acceleration or braking.

I'll need to fabricate the most gosh awful Rube Goldberg looking throttle linkage for the sideways mounted Webers on my home built intake. But may go to a throttle cable from firewall to the mechanical linkage at the intake for the same reason...... To gain more precise control and prevent the linkage from moving around and pivot points from binding under hard acceleration and braking. Should be fun!

Best regards,

Harry