Factory Five Roadster Cooling System Install - Project Snake Charmer: Part 10

Moving on to the pedal-box refurbishment and installation, we have here the donor '96 Mustang pedal box just as it came out of some poor, lifeless Mustang at the All Mustang Recycling facility. This baby needs a coat of paint and a few goodies before we can bolt it into our Roadster project.

For starters, we'll strip the pedal box down to the bare framework and inspect everything. First to go is the stock plastic clutch quadrant adjuster. A billet unit allowing external adjustment will replace this.

On the newer pedal-box assemblies there's a stud in the lower right corner, and these captured spacers that need to be pitched, before the pedal box will mount to the Roadster's forward foot-box wall. The stud can be pressed or hammered out, while simply bending the corners down, pulling out the spacers, and then bending the corners back into place.

With a quick pass through the blast cabinet, a coat of primer is applied before we go any further. Test fitting the pedal box using the kit-supplied mounting hardware will visually confirm if any further modifications need to be made, such as enlarging a mounting hole or trimming an ear.

Once the pedal box is properly trimmed for our setup, a coat of black chassis paint is applied to the box and the clutch and brake pedal arms. The clutch and brake pedal arms are then reinstalled with new Bullitt pedal pads from Texas Mustang (PN F4MS-0002301B-M, $18.95 each).

The fully assembled pedal box with both pedals and all switches is installed for another test fit. This time we've added our custom billet-aluminum gas-pedal assembly from Russ Thompson [rtcobra@comcast.net; (510) 234-7376], modified to use a Bullitt accelerator-pedal pad from Texas Mustang (PN F4MS-0002301A-M; $19.95). Russ sells custom Factory Five products through his company, Russ's Garage, and his throttle pedal comes highly recommended for smooth actuation, adjustability, and for being less sensitive than the suggested Mustang gas-pedal arm.

We found the brake pedal a little too close to Russ's gas pedal (a common problem even with the stock Mustang gas pedal), so we slightly bent the pedal arms for more room. There are several ways to do this, including removing the pedal arm and bending it in a vise. We heard about these nifty steel pedal bender tools on the FFR forum at www.ffcobra.com and borrowed one (you have to get on a list for your geographic location).

While you can often bend the pedals right in the car, we had to remove the pedal box to get a bit more room. Even with that, it took us maybe 15 minutes to move the brake pedal over a little less than 2 inches and the clutch pedal about an inch. Compare the first photo of the mounted pedals (below left) with the last one (above right) to see the difference.