Ok, here goes what I believe to be the easiest and cheapest repair possible for the dead pedal that I broke a couple of days ago. If you’re like me and you thought the dead pedal is just supposed to pop off the floor and come loose, guess what? YOU WERE WRONG!! Now that you’ve broken the dead pedal follow this step by step guide to make it better than ever. When you’re done with this how-to you should be able to lift the entire car up by it. Mine is much more solid than I ever imagined. I’m actually glad that I broke it because it’s better than ever now. It’s not going to break off again…. I guarantee it.
Here we go kiddies. First off gather the necessary tools. I have compiled a picture below showing basically everything you’ll need. There may be one or two small things I forgot, but this is all the important stuff.
- The broken dead pedal with tread insert. 2) You’re socket set and ratchet. 3) A socket extension. 4) ½” drive breaker bar with appropriate socket for your lug nuts. This is what I use as a lug wrench. Use whatever you prefer. 5) Some type of moderately heavy hammer. 6) Safety goggles, unless you want to live dangerously. 7) A scissor jack. 8) An angle grinder, or a bench grinder. 9) Your hardware. You will need 4 washers. One ¼-20 X 1 bolt, one ¼-20 X 3 bolt, and two nuts to fit the bolts. Now that the tools are ready lets begin.
If your dead pedal broke like mine then it probably looks like this.
The little plastic things look like they snapped off on the back and the 10mm nuts were still on the studs underneath the tread insert. The first thing that we have to do is to get those old fasteners out of the pedal. I tried everything I could think of to hold the broken fasteners still so I could take the nuts off of the studs. There is nothing to grip onto them with, so I got a better idea. Just punch the whole brass insert out and put a new washer inside. So I tried punching them out but they wouldn’t budge. Then I got out the angle grinder and went to work on them.
The idea here isn’t to try and get the fasteners out with the angle grinder (or bench grinder if you prefer). You just want to heat them up enough so that they will slide out of the pedal when the surrounding plastic slightly melts. Take the grinder and buzz over the back of the fastener until they heat up just enough to start melting the plastic. DON’T get carried away and lay into the thing with all your weight. This isn’t a competition tough guy. We don’t want a toxic plastic fire going with billowing black smoke. The chicks aren’t standing around to watch your rippling pythons as the sparks fly either. We just want to get the thing fixed. So try to contain yourself if at all possible.
After you have gently heated up the fastener you are ready to tap it out of the pedal. It it hasn’t already fallen out on its own. (My first one did that, but I had to tap out the second.) Put your 10mm socket with an extension on the nut and lightly tap it with the hammer.
The el cheapo fastener should pop right outta there. Money shot baby! Say goodbye to your broken fasteners…
After you have carefully removed both studs from the pedal hopefully you’ll be looking at something fairly similar to this. All depending on how carried away you got in the previous step… Don’t worry…… I trust your judgement….
You can see the hole where the studs used to be. They may seem quite large but the fasteners will make up the difference. Our four washers will keep the bolts from slipping through the enlarged holes. Now that the pedal is ready to go, it’s time to get the car ready to put them on. I would recommend removing the front left wheel just to minimize frustration. There is no need to be fighting around it the whole time, when you can have it off of there in 2-3 minutes, comprende?? Start by breaking those lugs loose with whatever tool of destruction you prefer.
After they are loose grab a scissor jack and get that baby up in the air….
Finish removing the lugs and pull the wheel off….
You should see something like this as the aftermath of your furied rampage when you attempted to remove the pedal in an apelike fashion. If you have any of the plastic push in connectors still in the holes, unscrew the middle portion and pull them out. Deposit them in the nearest waste receptacle. You will no longer be needing their assistance.
Here is where I prove to you that this method WILL in fact work correctly. Being the genius that I am I decided to put this trouble light inside the wheel well and then go back inside the car to see if I can see the light. Very industrious if I say so myself….
