Malwood underdash hydraulic kit for A-Bodies

[Map63Vette]

Dang, this is a neat setup. I did a hydraulic install for my T56 many years ago when the American Powertrain kit was the only thing on the market. I ended up just using a generic Wilwood and flattening the firewall a bit to mount it next to the master. I welded a tab on the pedal support to extend it out to the side and mounted my master to that. Got the idea from someone else here on the forum. My execute isn't very pretty and it sits way close to the master though. I ended up having to go with a master that had inboard facing outlets for the brake lines because the clutch master sat too close to it. I recently swapped the brake master over to one from a gen 1 Viper though as my old one was leaking and I had no idea what it actually came from, so didn't want to try to find a rebuild kit. Figured a newer master was a "known" quantity and something I could more easily plan for and deal with in the future if I needed parts.

 

[dust]

Let me start out by saying that the potential park brake clearance issue has been resolved by Ross at Malwood. He was quite helpful.

I have two 1968 Barracuda pedal frame assemblies. One for an automatic, one from a 4 speed car. Only difference is the 4 speed car had a brace across the front. Mine was broken and I had a professional welder friend repair mine.

View attachment 1716339941

Other difference I found was the pivot shaft for the brake pedal was longer on the 4 speed. More later on how that could matter. The groove on right is what locates it in the frame. So the bottom one would stick out more on the side the clutch pedal assembly attaches to.

View attachment 1716339939

Here is a factory four speed pedal assembly:
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Here is the older version of the Malwood kit installed on my car. Pedals came out very close together. I did a facetime phone call with Ross at Malwood and we could not figure out how or why mine was different.
View attachment 1716339943

Here it is on the bench:
View attachment 1716339944

And a youtube video showing the park brake clearance issue. The clevis rubs on the corner of the assembly and the lever sometimes catches on the bolt head for the clutch pedal pivot. If you were to install this with the longer style pivot shaft it would not clear at all.



Ross made a change to the pedal location and sent me the new version of the kit. He had already made a design change to help with the park brake lever clearance issue. He moved the assembly up closer to the firewall and that allowed it to be closer to the pedal frame.

Here is the old version in the left vs the new version on the right:
View attachment 1716339946

Here is the new version installed in the pedal frame on the bench:
View attachment 1716339947

Pedals are 5-1/2” center to center and with the stainless trim there is about 1-5/8” space:
View attachment 1716339948

Here is the new version installed in the car:
View attachment 1716339949

Here is a video showing the park brake clearance:



If you are forced to use the longer pivot shaft the built in spacer on the Malwood assembly might have to be shortened 1/4” for everything to line up perfectly. But, there is enough space now it may not be an issue.

Thank you for sharing the photos, video, and resolution with Ross. I'm running into the same issue. With your post to reference; headache figuring out what's wrong was eliminated. I'm contacting MalWood.