brake servo removal

im looking to smooth the engine bay of my mk1, im wanting to have the servo done away with or at the least moved over to the drivers side, couls a mk4 20vt servo fit at the drivers side??


is it best to use a pedal box, iv looked at the full 3 pedal boxes, iv also seen just brake pedal boxe alone has any one had anything to do with this set up??

thanks in advance
grant

Best option is to buy or make a custom pedal box that sits under the dashboard, there's someone out there who sells them (not sure who tho) but they're about ?300.  I built my own to save myself the ?300, not quite as proffesional and clean cut as the others out there but not bad for a first attempt.  You can keep the brake lines inside the car then and run them down through the wings, tidies up the engine bay massively.

sounds like a good idea to fab one my self then, what master cylinders did you use iv got ones from my mk1, a mk2 16v and a mk4 gti 1.8 turbo, would it be best to use the mk4 for the front and the 16v or mk1 for the back, thanks for the help and pics

did you use the mk1 pedal for your box??

thanks grant

I've used 2 wilwood master cylinders from rally design and a balance bar from them too.  I've used the original mk1 pedal but it has been cut short then extended using 2 pieces of 50x5mm flat bar, then the centre reem for the balance bar is welded into the top of this and the pivot point just below which is a piece of 12or14mm round bar sat in a centre tube with brass bushes in either end that is then welded through the modified pedal assembly.

By using this setup with the right choice of master cylinders the bias can now be adjusted using the balance bar.  I've not really got any pics that explain what i've just wrote any better and now it's obviously sat in the car so can't get anymore without removing the whole dash.  Sounds much more comlicated than it really is, I found the hardest part was getting the 2 side plates cut correctly to fit to the bulkhead right.  Wish i had a plasma cutter available then as it would've made my life much easier.

thanks for the help will see how i get on, im converting to hyd clutch co will prob have to do similar to the clutch pedal, what are the brakes like after doing this conversion. is there a much better feel to the pedal??
thanks grant

do you kno what carriers i would need for 4pot brake calipers from an audi 80 coupe to get them to fit my mk1
thanks grant

Don't have a clue about the calipers.  

Brake pedal feel is massively improved, hardly any pedal travel, but the big downside for some is that it takes way more effort to get the brakes to work, one of them things really, doesn't bother me too much as my size 14s are more than adequete to stamp on the pedal, feels wierd at first but you just get used to it.

Not done the clutch hyd pedal yet but it will be getting done this winter, think it should be way easier than the brakes to sort out tho as there's no biasing to sort and the mounting don't have to be as rugged as there's not the massive forces present that there are in the brake system.

sounds like its well worth it will see how i get on, thanks for the help
grant

Brake pedal feel is massively improved, hardly any pedal travel, but the big downside for some is that it takes way more effort to get the brakes to work, one of them things really, doesn't bother me too much as my size 14s are more than adequete to stamp on the pedal, feels wierd at first but you just get used to it.

Thats probably not a typical feature of the brake system installed but is probably a simple leverage ratio issue ie: the ratio between the pivot point and brake actuator rod and the pivot point and the pedal where you push it.

Adjusting these ratios or spacing them differently will alter the mechanical efficiency or effort required  

Yeah, I did the best I could get away with, in hindsight I could've got a better ratio by sitting the MCs higher and moving the pivot point up, wasn't sure how much space I could get away with under the dash for the MCs to clear.  Doesn't bother me too much tho as i'm used to them now and I know what i've built is over engineered for the job in hand so it won't fall to bits on me.

Have you got servo's fitted with this set up then as looking in to this myself, i'm an mot tester so checked the book of all knowledge and it says if a car is fitted with a servo as standard then it cannot be removed so to do this you would have to install remote servos, these are on ebay. that might explain why the pedal is so hard and doesn't really do much as the servo boosts the brakes to almost double the pedal effort??

As far as I was aware, if a brake servo is fitted it must be working but it is perfectly ok to remove it, my bro was an MOT tester and reckoned this was the case. It's passed 2 MOTS like this without a problem as it easily surpasses the braking requirements for a mk1.

i'll put on what it says in the book in a bit. to be honest if the brakes worked ok but were a little hard i would probably pass it lol.

MrPurple,  

What size M/Cs did you use, 3/4"?  What calipers are you running at the front?

Cheers

I'm using a .750 on the fronts and a .625 on the rears.  Running wilwood 4 pots on the front and mk4 calipers at the back, I had to add an in line bias valve to calm down the rears as they were way too keen even with the smaller cylinder and the balance bar wound right over to the fronts.

That's what I thought, I'm using GTI up front and drums at rear [caddy].  But going to use a floor mount pedal, and hyro clutch.

Cheers for the info.

Beware of going for a floor mount pedal box, we did that on my mates caddy and it is a pain in the a**e.  You need to have double jointed ankles to use the bloody thing.

I was planning on lowering the seat height to eliminate that.... :dontknow:

Still doesn't do it, the problem we had was that due to the length of the cylinders we couldn't get it mounted far enough forward even after chopping away a square of metal to get it sitting another 4" further forward, did it anyway but it's far from ideal and is getting changed for a top hinged hidden assembly very soon.

What size cylinders did you use? I've mocked it up with full size alu m/cs but getting a set of small reservoir m/cs shortly and test fitting with those.  That's after cutting out the chassis bracing/foot well area].  

I haven't got any OEM pedals, so resistant to go swing mount at this point, but I'll check out these new m/cs and see how it is.

Cheers