Easy Replacement For V6 Hanging Gas Pedal

Like some others who have V6 CJs with the hanging (suspended) type accelerator pedal, I've found my '67 CJ5 to be somewhat uncomfortable to drive over long, and even not-so-long distances due to the awkward placement and size of the original stock gas pedal. It's no problem for me to reach the gas pedal with the front part of my foot when my heel is on the floor, as I wear a size 13 shoe. Even so, I've found that the muscles in the front of my shin frequently begin to ache from having to constantly hold my foot up at the angle necessary to depress the gas pedal.

It occurred to me that it might be possible to find a longer hanging-type gas pedal from a different vehicle which would be an improvement over the original jeep pedal. If so, this could allow the pedal to be depressed from a point closer to the floor, which could in turn allow the side or bottom of my right foot to rest against the transmission tunnel or the floor as I'm driving.

The stock CJ hanging gas pedal is rather short (4-5/8" long), and the roll pin pivot that attaches it to the mounting fork is directly in the middle of the pedal - meaning that only about 2-5/16" of the pedal's overall length extends downward from the pivot toward the floor. The pedal has a rubber cover molded over a fairly substantial steel backing plate. A torsion spring around the pivot pin presses against the top of the backing plate, pushing it towards the drivers' seat.







I didn't think it would be a good idea to consider a plastic gas pedal as a possible substitute, considering the pressure of the torsion spring against the back. I started looking around online trying to find longer hanging-type pedals from other vehicles that were built similarly to the original jeep pedal, with a steel backing plate and rubber cover.

It didn't take long to figure out that there were really only a few potential substitute pedals that looked like they might actually work. Both Ford and GM produced a few different hanging pedals of this general type during the late 1960's - early '70s, and together these made up the possible contenders I was able to identify.

Out of this group, the most probable candidates appeared to me to be the two Ford gas pedals that were used in the 1967-72 F-100 truck (which were also used in the '64-'68 Mustang) and the 1966-77 Bronco (also used in several full-sized Ford cars). Another plus for the Ford pedals was that they both looked somewhat more like the CJ's original gas pedal than GM's hanging pedals did.

To test this, I picked up inexpensive examples of each of these two Ford pedals on eBay. They are shown below next to the stock jeep pedal. I ran a metal rod through the pivot / mounting holes of each pedal to make it easier to see how they compare in terms of their relative angles and lengths, especially their lengths below the pivot.

The stock jeep pedal at left has an overall length of 4-5/8", the F-100 pedal at center is 5-1/4" long, and the Bronco pedal on the right is about 6-3/8" long:



I temporarily installed each of the two Ford pedals on the original mounting fork, tightening the fork on the control rod so I could sit in the drivers seat and try each one out.

There was some improvement using the F-100 pedal, as it's about 3/4" longer than the original pedal below the pivot. This places the bottom of the F-100 pedal 3/4" closer to the floor than the stock jeep pedal, making it at least a little easier to reach. However, the sloped angle of this particular pedal was a little too much for it to fit well next to the adjacent transmission tunnel when fully depressed. Another issue with using the F-100 pedal was that the narrow tab spacing on its mounting bracket didn't align well with the jeep's wider pivot fork (though it still could've been made to work).







The Bronco pedal, with some minor modifications, turned out to be a very good fit for the CJ. Once installed, this pedal proved to have a good angle, width, and length for my foot to be able to relax a bit while depressing it. The bottom portion of the Bronco pedal, measured from the pivot to its lower end, is about 1-3/4" longer than that of the original pedal - so it's that much closer to the floor than the stock pedal, and that much easier to reach. Even with this additional length, due to its sloping angle, it still fits nicely down into the area next to the transmission tunnel when fully depressed.

In order to allow the mounting holes in the pedal to line up with those in the pivot fork, I modified the Bronco pedal slightly by cutting away two small areas on the rear of the rubber cover, then used a Dremel to slightly grind down the turned-up metal edges a bit in the areas where the rubber backing was removed.

The mounting hole tabs at the ends of the Bronco pedal's mounting bracket turned out to have almost exactly the right spacing to fit inside the jeep's pivot fork. These two tabs had to be compressed toward each other only very slightly, about 1/32", in order to get them to fit inside the tongs of the fork.



Using a bench grinder to grind about 1/16" off the faces of the pivot fork closest to the pedal allowed it to rotate slightly on the pivot, like the stock setup was designed to.



I used a 1-29/32" long AN23-30A Clevis Bolt with a thin 10-32 nylon-insert lock nut as the pivot in place of a roll pin, and assembled everything using a little grease between the moving parts. The end of the bolt was then ground down to the surface of the nylon insert, and the assembly was painted.











With these minor modifications, the Bronco pedal works great on the CJ. Speaking for myself, at least, it created a significant improvement in the jeep's overall driving comfort as compared to the stock gas pedal - and IMHO, it looks good at the same time.




Pedal depressed about halfway (note that most of my foot is resting on the floor):



Pedal "floored", fully depressed:



As a note of interest, this gas pedal is installed upside down from the way it was mounted by Ford on the Bronco. A buddy with a '76 Bronco told me that the mounting bracket on his gas pedal is closer to the bottom, rather than the top - so evidently the Broncos had a longer / lower accelerator control rod than the early CJs did.

In case anyone else wants to try this out, the Bronco gas pedal is Ford part number C5AZ-9735 D. When I was looking, there were many of these for sale on eBay, both used and NOS, and reproductions are available as well (though I'm not sure if or how well the repro pedals would work, as the one I used was a genuine Ford part).

Hope this is helpful to some others out there with a stock hanging gas pedal and a sore right shin!

 

nice write up . but I think the later floor mounted gas pedals work great . but very hard to source

 

Since the floor mounted pedals are hard to find I made my own from sheet metal. Much more comfortable. Not perfect but better.

 

Seems like a floor mounted pedal from an F head could be made to work. Those arent too hard to find. I need to figure something out one of these days, I'm currently just stepping on the rod because the pedal has been missing since I bought it.

 

How did you plum the clutch in from the hanging pedals, is there a thread on installing them. Assume you keep the gas pedal and replace the brake and clutch. I have pedals and brake booster with dual MC for my 62 cj5/M38a1 with 225