MTFCA Forum

I just finished rebuilding my hog's head this evening. Looks nice.....new parts inside, auxiliary oiler fixture on and everything painted. I used the "O" ring trick on the pedal shafts also, so leaks should be minimal. I stood back to admire my work and noticed for the first time that the low speed pedal and brake pedal are at different heights. The reverse pedal is closer to the driver, which makes sense since no human being could get his foot between the other two......but aren't the low speed and brake supposed to be uniform? When both pedals are forward, against the cam surface (but not pushed) the brake pedal is farther forward.

I looked in a couple of my books and it looks like this may be normal......just not sure.

My car doesn't have a "quick" pedal....

George, the low pedal is usually close to even with the brake when in neutral. When the hand brake is off, in high gear it's back a little farther.

What position is the parking brake lever? When you pull it back into either neutral or brake position the low pedal will go down into the neutral position. With the parking lever forward, the two pedals will be close to the same position. The important thing is that the pedals go all the way back. Sometimes the o rings will bind the shaft and the spring is not enough to push the pedal all the way back.
Norm

George, repeated heavy use of the brake pedal over the years can result in it being bent, quite a bit at times. Judiciously applied heat will allow it to be pulled back so that it lines up again. Sorry about your nice paintwork! Or, you could ignore it, as long as you still have enough pedal travel without it bottoming out on the floorboards.

Hope this helps.
Allan from down under.

Seems your hogshead is good to go. Normally with fresh cams and pedals seated, the arrangement is like what you see. It can change some when you fit to the engine and hook up the clutch lever that will change the low pedal a bit.
Line drawing by Ford, shows pedal heights.

Side view of rebuilt hogshead

Thanks for the replies everyone! I just gave the whole thing a good look-over and that brake pedal is DEFINITELY too far forward....almost 3"....and would hit the floor boards. As for the O rings, they're having very little affect on the pedals, just a tiny bit of resistance to let me know they're doing their job.

I'll pull it out this morning, put it in the vise and and "urge" it back with a little heat. And, I have LOTS of paint...........

Here is another's photo with measure of the approx. distance for the brake pedal at full release (rearward). May want to check. The tape measure is metric.

Converts to English approx. 6 3/4"

I think George got his answer and I don't want to hijack his thread, but I just noticed that my Reverse pedal is bent outward towards the left and the Clutch pedal is slightly bent inward. Should all the pedal arms line up parallel with each other? Art

George

Since you have had this all apart, I think this bears mentioning: The brake/reverse pedal supports are different than the low pedal support. I have seen a couple of instances where someone put the wrong support in and it materially changed the location of the resting position of the pedal (not to mention performance/use problems). Check that the support installed on the brake pedal has the inclined cam or "ramp" matching the pedal cam, with little to no slop. It will be very obvious if it is right or wrong, once you lay your eyeballs on it.

If all is good, then it's time to bend, as folks have advised.

Once again, thanks everyone.....

Scott, the pedal cams are all correctly installed, although to be honest your comment about "little to no slop" in the cam surfaces has me wondering. I does take a bit of forward motion before the pedals cam outward....but that amount of "slop" is very uniform.

Dan, thanks for the photo example. My brake pedal is forward considerably more than yours. Now all I have to do is buy a metric tape measure.....

Quick edit: I just measured the distance from the rear of the hog's head to the middle of the brake pedal.......8 1/2".......so there's definitely a bend involved. Funny thing is, the pedal looks normal which is why I didn't spot it until after assembly. No matter, we heat and bend!