The Go Button

Here's an example of making a simple thing complex.

The pedal set is by Jamar, floor mounted for beach buggys. It comes with hydraulic clutch and brake master cyliners although I swapped out the Jamar single brake master for a VW dual master. The pedal set is alloy with a roller accelerator and looks cool. Being floor mounted avoids the need for an extra strong firewall mounting. However fitting pipes to a floor mounted master cylinder is a PITA.

Now, how do you fit the accelerator cable to middies? It seems easy at first, just pin the sheath to the side of the foot well and tie the cable to the pedal – job done.

Whoa! Firstly, the throttle body is 3 metres away as the cable flies. Answer, the rear derailleur cable from a tandem bike is 3m long and features stainless cable, wire wound teflon sheath, great flexibility, and is an el-cheapo $30.

The foot well fitting didn’t work as the cable attached at a 30^o angle and I couldn’t get a full pull of the cable. Also, if my foot slipped to the right I could accidentally squeeze the cable – and if I had also switched on max turbo boost ..... ..... ...

So I added a little push rod to move the cable link forward, safe from my clodhoppers. Now the cable could run straight in, but the sheath caught my heel every time. Okay add a pulley to angle the cable down and let the sheath run along the floor. Also a spring so that all that mass could return to idle. The result is pictured below.

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