starting my diesel swap, 4cyl MB diesel engine into 89 Astro

[doyoulikeithere]

This is your 90 T5. Notice the angled input for the speedo drive. You have an electric speedo.
Below is my 87 T5. Notice that the speedo drive is not angled, and rides below the shaft, not pointed at the shaft. I have a cable speedometer
Its good to know that both styles do exist, although I wonder how hard it would be to find another one...

so if you drill the holes in this general area, the pedal will hang and pivot real nice. Measuse well to line up the rod to the cylinder so it doesnt bind.

[tinworm]

As I recall, you will be lifting the engine up, correct? I lifted mine 2" with a 2" body lift. You have a welded body lift (nice).
I only mention this because the further from the floor your T5 sits, the more likely you will find that the shift lever hits the edges of the hole in the floor, causing it too pop out of gear. Of course you can make the hole bigger, but then the boot wont fit right.
What I see in your pix looks a lot different than mine....

Ive been spacing it based on that jig earlier in the thread essentially on where the auto was in the stock arrangement. I have given the jig a couple feet the same dimension as the body lift, so im hoping to keep the transmission in the same orientation as if I hadn't done the body lift by spacing out the trans mount and engine mounts to match the lift. Hopefully

[tinworm]

This is your 90 T5. Notice the angled input for the speedo drive. You have an electric speedo.
Below is my 87 T5. Notice that the speedo drive is not angled, and rides below the shaft, not pointed at the shaft. I have a cable speedometer
Its good to know that both styles do exist, although I wonder how hard it would be to find another one...

Im thinking next to impossible, but with so many options, I can make something work if I blow this transmission. I haven't yet verified that it has a sensor provision in there though!

[tinworm]

So the clutch pedal is just about resolved, some final welding to do once I have the right angle, but it hangs in the correct area finally-
from the outside, this is where the slave is supposed to poke through-



after drilling a bunch of little holes and carefully working with the hacksaw and dremel, the hole was finally cleaned up-



this is a stock master cylinder for a 1990 astro RS, bought from autozone. They looked up the truck for me just using that info, and came up with this-



mounted outside and inside-




drilling some horizontal holes in this tiny inaccessible area was not really possible, at least for me, and I decided to instead cut a slot, build a pivot, and weld it up when I had it fitted properly.
this is where the hole is supposed to be i think, matches on both sides with this weird little curve-



I notched out that whole area on both sides- (not the cleanest cut in the world, but ill dress it up before I weld.



meanwhile with the pedal I made this little pivot piece with a couple ears for welding-




fitted it lines up pretty well, now to weld it in-




overall, this was a huge pain in the ass. Pics later once I weld it in (if I do a good enough job to display to the world)

[tinworm]

question for doyoulikeitthere-

is this clutch pedal any more complex that this?
By that I mean are there any tensioning springs, ect that I did not have that are on your 5-speed van?

The reason im concerned is that on every clutch pedal assembly ive ever installed, which are mostly euro cars, there is always a springloaded pivot piece that assists the clutch pedal going up and down, and this astro pedal does not have one, and having not working on chevy manual transmission applications before, im not sure if its missing something. It does have a second hole on it though, so im wondering if there is a little important bit missing that I have to fabricate. Is this all there is?

[kamenz]

Tinworm, what you install on the fire wall is your clutch master cylinder and the slave cylinder is mounted on the trani, the spring load of the clutch pressure plate will force the hydraulic oil out of the slave cylinder back to master cylinder. You just have to make sure that the slave cylinder is installed properly on the trani so your throughout bearing has no residual load after you release the clutch pedal,so you have to have some free play on the trani between the slave cylinder piston road and throughout fork-throughout bearing assembly.

[tinworm]

Yes, I meant to say master, excuse me. Ill edit it later, ill also post up a pic of what I mean by spring assist on the pedal in a couple hours.

I do have matching master and slave for the 90 RS van, so the proportions hydraulically should work, the wild card is the custom flywheel and how that might change the feel or grab of where the clutch is

[tinworm]

Tinworm, what you install on the fire wall is your clutch master cylinder and the slave cylinder is mounted on the trani, the spring load of the clutch pressure plate will force the hydraulic oil out of the slave cylinder back to master cylinder. You just have to make sure that the slave cylinder is installed properly on the trani so your throughout bearing has no residual load after you release the clutch pedal,so you have to have some free play on the trani between the slave cylinder piston road and throughout fork-throughout bearing assembly.

so here is what I mean by spring assist-



This is a pic of the top of a euro (VW) clutch pedal, which is cable operated, but the ear on the back of the pedal on the left side of the pic has a little pivot that in turns seats a spring which is bolted to the body on the other end. The spring is at full compression at mid point of pedal travel, and the practical result is that it snaps the pedal either up or down and provides mechanical assist holding the pedal to the floor, or returning the pedal to full upright.
Ive seen this on a lot of euro cars of different manufacturers, cable and hydraulic, so I had assumed it was a pretty common practice.

The astro pedal has a second hole on it, so I was curious if im missing an assembly to the pedal cluster, not necessarily to the rest of the clutch system.

Here is a better pic of a MB hydraulic clutch assembly, notice the spring in the middle that connects to the pedal

[doyoulikeithere]

some pics I posted to this thread a while back do show some springs and how they attach to my pedal.
I can look for more pix when I get home.....

[tinworm]

some pics I posted to this thread a while back do show some springs and how they attach to my pedal.
I can look for more pix when I get home.....

oh yeah, im seeing that, its up at the top of this page, thanks for posting that, I was looking more at the slave area than really understanding what that part was. Interesting, looks like some kind of torsion spring up on the mount area.

I may have to rework my mount to incorporate something like that.
The other thing that pic shows is a stop, looks like a neutral safety switch stopping the pedal from going further forward. Have to build that too

[doyoulikeithere]

Yes, there is a switch so it wont start unless you push the clutch in.

[tinworm]

so rummaging around, I managed to find this big torsion spring that kinda looks like around the same size in doyoulikeitthere's pic, which originally was for a Mk2 VW brake pedal. I played with the spring rate by rebending the hooks to look like this-



So that it would actually catch on the pedal, I notched it up high-



I then notched the pivot piece I made to get the other side of the spring, here it is installed on the pivot/pedal, rest position for the pedal is approx level with the pivot piece now-



Now that the spring was installed, I welded in the pivot piece permanently, you can see here how the rest position of the spring kicks the pedal up quite far. Welds are a bit ugly, but plenty strong.-



next I made a little stop for the interim until I rig up a neutral safety switch. This is made again from a mk2 VW part, its actually a clutch lever bushing for a cable clutch, which works well enough as the interim stop-




Now apart from cleaning and painting the weld areas and bare metal, I have a working spring loaded clutch pedal with a stop finally!

[doyoulikeithere]

Looks great.
My concern would be that the pedal hits the floor before it fully compresses the master. I notice with mine that it needs every little bit of pressure.
The hole where the con rod sits was worn too oblong on the pedal, and as a result the clutch would not fully disengage. Had to fill the hole and redrill to fix it.
I mention this because in my pix, I can see that the the pedal pivot holes are actually an inch or two closer to the firewall than you have set yours...
Also, whenthe padal is fully depressed, how straight does the linkage between padal and cylinder sit. At fully depressed, it should sit/hit dead centre.

[tinworm]

Looks great.
My concern would be that the pedal hits the floor before it fully compresses the master. I notice with mine that it needs every little bit of pressure.
The hole where the con rod sits was worn too oblong on the pedal, and as a result the clutch would not fully disengage. Had to fill the hole and redrill to fix it.
I mention this because in my pix, I can see that the the pedal pivot holes are actually an inch or two closer to the firewall than you have set yours...
Also, whenthe padal is fully depressed, how straight does the linkage between padal and cylinder sit. At fully depressed, it should sit/hit dead centre.

the hole in my pedal is also worn pretty bad, must be a common issue with these pedals, I have to fill mine in as well. With the pedal fully depressed, the pushrod is level. Id rather have the clutch pedal a little too far out than a little too far in, as I should be able to make up any issues in adjustments on the inside hopefully

[doyoulikeithere]

Can the pedal be removed, from your intallation?
I thought I should be able to get a short drill in to drill the holes in mine, because there was room enough to remove the pedal.
Also, have you checked that the steering column still fits in?