Manual Brake Pedal?

90mustangGT

I felt sorry for girls because
Founding Member
Jan 15, 2002
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Dallas, GA
I have driven several vehicles with manual brakes and I didn't think they were that bad but thier pedals had more travel to them. Power Brakes the pedal travel is very short. Does anyone make a manual brake pedal kit? I am thinking of converting to a manual brake setup. I know the pro's and con's.
 
I've never used one, but in my readings I believe I came across something to do with the manual conversions. I think there is a rod that goes from the master cylinder to the pedal that you replace -- it might give you more travel like you're thinking???
 
I am almost a pro on this topic. Definately PM me if you need more info but here it goes.

The manual pedal has the pin mounted higher up on the brake pedal that gives more leverage and thus more travel. You can take any brake pedal and move the pin higher to create a manual brake pedal.

Baer brakes had a manual pedal and M/C adapter for $200 last I checked.

I had a friend weld me in a new pin. I made a pin from a long shank bolt, drilled the hole and he welded it up in 20 seconds. Done.

You will need a master cylinder conversion kit. The rod that goes from the pedal to the MC is arched. The loop part normally faces down. You rotate this 180 degress so that the loop faces up. This makes up for the relocated pin with no other mods. Another way to do it is to mount the M/C higher on the firewall. This second option is only going to happen with a custom made kit.

I do not run brake lights, but as long as you use the right sized pin, it will work fine. I actually used a larger pin to eliminate that plastic bushing.

I also used a chrylser M/C from an 84 van to relocated the outputs to the drivers side to free up room for tall valve covers and the dipstick. This is a 2 port M/C and is not hard to swap in.

More info the bore size of the MC also affects pedal travel and effort. There are limits to what you can use, but the smaller bore size will make less effort and more travel than a larger bore size. So 7/8 will be easier to push than 1 1/4 but travel farther than the larger bore.
 
brakepedal2.jpg
 
The Skinny Kid Racing kit comes with a Strange dual port master cylinder and a new rod that is adjustable, it also comes with a brake light switch that you can plumb into the brake system, very trick.

The rod on the Skinny kid kit is adjustable and straight, not curved like many others. I ran the ASP kit and a stock master for awhile but I found I was really standing on the brakes at 130mph to try to stop. You still move the attachment point 1" up further on the pedal.
 
It's not too much of a project. The adaptor kit is about $60 (not the skinny kid kit). If you can get a manual pedal out of an older mustang or fairmont with manual brakes, you could swap the whole thing out in about 2 hours. Or to save some digging, make it like I did.