Lotus Excel pedal box 1: Removal

The problems with my clutch pedal have been described earlier... At the very least these problems require further investigation, and there seems no alternative to removing the pedal box in order to assess its condition. I have seen another account where this has been done and its clearly difficult, but this is my attempt. Overall it is tricky-but not as tricky as I made it! The main difficulty is that removal of the pedal box has also meant undoing and redoing a number of jobs that I had already completed as well as dismantling parts that up until now I had had no intention of dismantling! Whats worse is that most of the parts are delicate and strung together with wiring. There is little clearance and ample opportunity to break things or accidentally disconnect them. All of this provides plenty of opportunity to do some damage and overall its a job I would very much have rather avoided if I had been able to.

Dismantling is as always limited by access. I have seen another account of this procedure in which the instrument panel had to be removed to gain access to the upper horizontal bolts. This seems drastic and I will try to avoid that if at all possible; it is true that removing the panel might also allow me to better check  the vacuum valves for the heater, but I can only guess what wiring/cabling horrors lurk behind the instruments and its a whole ballpark I don't want to get into. Last time I fitted the servo I used this combination of sockets and extensions ("servo removal and fitting a repair kit"), note that you will need a deep 1/4 drive 13mm socket to slip over the servo studs and access the nuts. I used. If you can keep your sockets to 1/4" drive then you should be able to access all the nuts without removing the instrument panel.

The pedal box is held on by four 13mm nuts at the rear which also retain the Girling servo on the other side of the bulkhead.

one of servo bolts

In addition there are a further two vertical bolts that penetrate vertically from the engine compartment firewall bulkhead and are retained by nuts at the top rear of the pedal box.

Vertical bolt that penetrates...

the bulkhead and is retained by a non-fixed nut in the engine compartment. One is clear here and ...

the other is hidden below the air intake scuttle.

There is also a cross brace on the left attaching to the steering column. One bolt for this is next to the wiper delay box and another on the opposite side of the column.

Lucas wiper delay unit and steering column brace bolt

Later cars ('86 on) also had another brace on the right attaching to the fuse panel. Fortunately I don't.
There is also a fairly major earthing stud on the left to which a host of wires are connected.

Earth post on rhs pedal box

... plus a few electrical items: the brake stoplight switch and Lucas wiper delay unit at the rear, and a flasher unit and interior light delay switch positioned on top.

Stoplight switch behind brake pedal.

Interior light delay and flasher unit. Yellow delay unit towards front of car.

 Finally of course, each of the three pedals is connected to its controlled element  clevis pins for brake and clutch master cylinders and a cable/clevis fork for the throttle.

The upper (vertical) bolts penetrate from the engine compartment and terminate on this plate.

Upper end of pedal box retaining bolts

The second bolt is recessed below the scuttle grill.

This is one of the vertical bolts with its corroded nut seen from below.

One of the 4 servo-retaining nuts- you will need a deep socket to accommodate the bolt threads and still contact the nut flats. I fixed these only a short while ago when I serviced the servo so at least they shouldn't be rusty!

It would be easiest to have a helper hold the nut inside the pedal box with the socket arrangement specified, whilst you unscrew the bolt from above and outside the car. Sadly I am working alone and had to jam the upper bolt head with a spanner or socket and unscrew the nut from beneath. There was a lot of slippage instances, much cursing and wriggling in and out of the footwell! However, I managed to unscrew both vertical bolts and all four servo retaining bolts using this socket arrangement.
The next step was to unscrew the brace to the steering column- this penetrates through into a semi captive spacer just visible in the hole revealed below.

Bolt removed from captive spacer. Note the grey speaker cable has been reinstalled across the pedal box and as I couldn't access either end, had to be cut.

Having removed all these bolts there was still no movement in the pedal box. Further investigation revealed  two other bolts that fasten the cross brace to the steering column.  A second at the front is secured to a captive spacer as before...

Second bracing bolt at front of box to steering column, note new addition of speaker cable snaking around box and steering column!

A third is located behind this bolt and is revealed when the small trim section is removed.

Final steering column bracing nut

Unlike the first two bolts this one is fixed by a non-captive nut... and surprisingly whilst the bolt head is 16mm, the nut (which is completely invisible!) is actually 18mm- this led to a very amusing interlude attempting to secure the back nut whilst unscrewing the front with a variety of stubby spanners that didn't fit. However, I eventually succeeded using an 18mm stubby on the rear and a 16mm socket on the front.

18mm stubby on back nut. Use a 16mm socket on the front- I had to put that down because I needed to hold the camera. You need to use a C spanner ans there is insufficient room to slip a ring over the back nut. It might be a good idea to cut the bolt a little shorter so that a ring spanner can be used.

This is the last of the main mounting bolts but the pedal box cannot move unless the servo is removed first.



You can get some movement by pulling the servo forward. I had hoped that this would be enough but sadly it isn't and you will have to remove the brake M/C and the servo completely to remove the studs and the rear of the servo assembly from inside the box.

This of course means detaching the brake servo action rod

Pulling out the brake servo arm R clip to ease out the clevis pin. 

The throttle cable also needs to be disconnected from its pedal. Unfortunately this was fitted with a split pin not an R clip so it couldn't be simply pulled out*. Furthermore it had been installed with the split pin on the inner side meaning that its not possible to get any purchase on it to unbend or pull it out. Faced with this you can get some clearance by disconnecting the throttle cable at the carb linkage, the clevis will have to be removed later as the box comes out and if I can get at it.

*NOTE I did later discover that in fact this shouldn't have been a problem at all- the cable does unclip at the clevis fork...  but sadly for me this wasn't apparent until after the box was removed!! See below.

Virtually impossible to even see the throttle clevis pin let alone remove it! - I detached it at the carb end to provide enough slack to move the box. 

Electrical connections have to be dealt with before removing the box... this includes the Lucas wiper delay box...

|Remove the Lucas wiper delay box- 2 self tappers

...and the earthing connections: Detach the earth cables from the earthing stud- there are a lot of these so make sure you keep them together and reconnect all of them.  Finally in my case, there was a replacement speaker cable that had been badly routed across the base of the box (see up). I couldn't get at either end of this wire so in the end I just cut it- marking one strand of the double wire with felt tip so that I can reconnect them correctly later.  The relays and flash unit atop the pedal box will be detached as I get more clearance during removing the box.

This leaves the heater air duct and speedo cable as the main obstructions; the heater hose simply pushes up and out of the box I will reconnect it to the under dash panel when I rebuild- this panel was missing when I got the car and so the route of the heater duct never really made sense. The speedometer  cable however, must be disconnected at the speedo end. This cable had a plastic clip-on sheath that attached to the rear of the speedo and is removed by unclipping the plastic latch. Later cables (1985 on) had a knurled screw ring. However in both cases undoing the attachment (clip or ring) should release the speedo cable inner. In my case the inner cable remained securely fixed inside the rear of the speedo- probably through corrosion as there was quite a lot of rust evident behind the instrument panel. The cable inner can be seen entering the yellow plastic cylinder that forms the rear of the speedometer.

Speedo cable- sheath clip removed, cable inner remained fixed inside the yellow plastic cylinder at the back of the speedometer.

In order to get more access to this cable end I reluctantly decided to remove the instrument panel- not a task I had expected to do. Firstly you need to remove the steering column trim- there is a single screw each side and two at the front behind the steering wheel. If you can turn the wheel to expose the two front screws then great- in my case and for various reasons (totally flat tyre!), I couldn't so I used an offset screwdriver to get at them. Do not remove the screw on the bottom of the shroud as this retains a spacer inside. The shroud halves then separate

Lifting upper half of columns shroud, screw hole clearly visible

Spacer inside lower column shroud- not sure what this is for, but its not necessary to remove it in order to remove the column shrouds.

The instrument panel is held on by 4 Phillips screws, one in each corner. These are longer than the shroud trim screws. Once removed the instrument panel dashpod can be unclipped from the pop stud it fits over on the left.

Clip stud on centre dash pod - instrument pod clips over this.

 The whole pod can then be pulled forward to give some access to the rear- a fair bit of rusty instrument cases here.

Instrument pod pulled forward, speedo cable inner enters from top in centre at app. 45 degrees.

 I could get a pair of pliers on there and use these to lever the speedo cable out- Although I was as careful as I could be, it did need a lot of force and  I doubt this was done without damaging the speedometer. I will keep my fingers crossed!

Inner cable speedo drive lug. Note corrosion on the cable.

I realise that you are not supposed to grease the last few inches of a speedo cable- although I think I would have preferred that and simply taken my chances with the instrument, because the end isn't supposed to be rusty like this either! I think I will clean and grease it lightly when I reassemble and clean out the speedo drive hole with a pipe cleaner as well.

While I was under the dashboard I did notice these two free wire connections: One is a double female bullet receiver connecting to two yellow and green wires, the second is a single male bullet connected through what looks like a suppression condensor. I don't know what these are supposed to serve but I suspect its something to do with long vanished audio equipment. I will have to check but in my earlier investigations I didn't find anything that wasn't receiving power so I made a mental note to investigate these later.

Longer condensor wire- suppressor?

condensor wire again but second female bullet on 2 yellow/green wires also visible.

It was at this point that things went (more than) slightly wrong! I was unable to lower the pedal box because it was held at the front by wiring to the flasher and interior light delay unit sockets, and at the rear by the throttle cable that I had been unable to remove earlier. As access to the relay holders wasn't available until the pedal box can be lowered, I was forced to spend a good 4 hours in the Lotus position trying to remove a rusted and virtually inaccessible split pin from below via a tiny access hole. Despite much cursing this proved impossible; and although I did manage to break off the split pin, a tiny stump jammed in the clevis pin and prevented it from being withdrawn. In the end I decided that I had no choice but to sacrifice a perfectly good throttle cable and cut it inside the engine bay (bye bye 50 quid!). It was't until I had removed the box that I realised my error!!! Even Lotus it seems, had realised that the arrangement they had used to secure the throttle cable was totally inaccessible- the cable actually fits into a slotted saddle and its this saddle that is secured by the intransigent clevis pin. However, the cable can actually be  unclipped easily from the pedal saddle without dismantling the clevis fork at all! There are times when something like a Haynes manual would be very useful- the Lotus WM doesn't mention the throttle cable at all! All the same, and although the clevis was fitted according to the parts book, I will refit with an "R" clip so that removal is at least possible if required! I photographed the damage I had wrought after the box was removed.

Attempts to remove the clevis pin from the throttle pedal... disaster! Note tiny pip remaining in the pin that prevented its withdrawal, and the damage done to the saddle in the process- bummer.

Accelerator pedal clevis fork- bent back into shape but the keyhole fastening that would have allowed easy cable removal is shown.

The pedal box could then be removed- you need to lower it at the front of the car (bulkhead) and raise it at the rear (i.e. under the steering wheel) so that the column clamp can clear the column. It's tight, but it does go; and once over the steering column the front can be tipped downwards to gain access to the relay mounting screws. During this process three spacers dropped out (below) There were two square spacers (which fit at the front of the steering column bracket to form the captive bolts, but there was also a long bar like spacer- I don't currently know where this came from but it seemed to drop out from the LHS.

Spacers dropping out of the pedal box as its removed- there were 2 square ones and a bar.

 The side of the box is then clearly accessible so I removed the two relays to reveal their mounting block  screws. This mounting detaches easily once these are removed.

Flasher unit/delay unit relays removed. Mounting screws beneath

 Finally the pedal box could at last be removed. I was then able to compare the old and new boxes. There was a difference but it was hard to photograph. The old box is on the left and the new on the right. The older box clutch lever  dips downwards more steeply and the end is turned beyond 90 degrees.

old box lhs, new on right.

New box on RHS- end of clutch pedal operating bracket is bent down at 90 degrees

Old pedal box- end of the clutch operating bracket is bent through more than a right angle and is going back on itself.

Extra bend of shaft and end is clear if the boxes are aligned such that the clutch operating arms should be parallel.

Its nice to know that after all this trouble the clutch pedal was indeed bent. However, had I understood just how tricky this would be (and the damage I would do in the process), I think I would have tried to re-bend it in position rather than change the box... up to you!

All in all, I think the new box will restore alignment with the clutch master cylinder, however I remain to be convinced that it will do anything for the range of movement and the "low pedal" that started all this work. This is because there doesn't seem to be much bending in the fore-and-aft direction.

Of course I will need to fit a new throttle cable although I am hoping to reuse the speedo. However, while the box is out I do have a golden opportunity to consider other items such as the clutch and bonnet release cables which both show fragmented outers. Similarly I may be able to get better access to the heater vacuum motors and valves and it might be sensible to change the rubber vacuum joints and lubricate any  mechanical linkages that are accessible too. All these cables are very expensive and I suspect I don't have originals anyway so I will do some checking to see if any can be replaced with stock Bowden cables and soldered nipples.

I will cover refitting in another post.