1968 Ford F-100 - The Bumpside Build Off -Tech

Near the firewall on the stock pedal assembly is a rubber stop that actually keeps the pedal from traveling too far back at the driver, which seemed like a good idea for the opposite to happen too. Plus, the rubber would give the stop a nice "thud" when the clutch pedal is engaged all the way. Using a piece of 3/16-inch cold-rolled steel, I mocked up a piece off the back of the clutch pedal that contacts the stop when the pedal travels the proper distance.

Here's my modified clutch pedal. The sharkfin-shaped piece off the back is the pedal stop. I used 3/16-inch plate for this because it's gonna get a lot of use and may be prone to some hard kicks throughout its life. For some, this may be too involved, and there are new dual pedal assemblies available in the aftermarket that have all the brackets to mount both the clutch and brake master cylinders without modification, but they will take some work to mount in your truck, so choose your poison.

Dennis Carpenter Reproductions has the parts you need to rebuild your stock pedals like these pedal bushings; the old ones have had it!

All in all, I think it came out good so far. Now let's install the hydraulic throwout bearing.

McLeod makes this collar to mount in place of the stock hydraulic throwout bearing, followed by an aluminum spacer for the Tremec TR-3650 Mustang five-speed.

McLeod's hydraulic throwout bearing's depth is fine-tuned by its screw-in sleeve that can give over a half-inch of adjustment. This unit slides onto the collar in the tranny with the screw adjuster side first, which has a tapered lip. Now the clutch needs to go on the motor.

Make sure to use a grade 8 bolt to connect the clutch pedal to the clevis on the clutch master pushrod, and also make sure the bolt has a long enough shoulder to pass through the clevis. I cut down this bolt that had the correct shoulder length. I also made this bracket "double shear," which means the bolt passes through metal on both sides of the clevis, instead of a "single shear" design, where the bolt passes through the clevis and into a bracket, with the nut on the other side and no second piece of metal. A double-shear design will be stronger and last longer.

The stock '05-07 Mustang five-speed transmission has a hydraulic throwout bearing already in it, but once you step up from the stock clutch, it doesn't work too well. McLeod realized this and made a replacement kit to help all those Mustang owners who want to start squeezing some horses out of their mod motors, but this is also the basic operation for most other transmissions as well. First, I removed the stock throwout bearing, which was held in place by two bolts.

I picked up McLeod's brand-new RST Street Twin dual-disc street clutch for mod motors, which was so new it was built while I was there, but they will be ready to ship by the time you read this. McLeod figured out a way to make a dual-disc racing clutch behave on the street and have done so with amazing results. A dual-disc clutch goes together a little differently than a single because, as you may have guessed, there are two clutch discs, but I wanted to make sure I had a good lesson from the pros, so Lee from McLeod caught me up to speed. The first clutch disc goes on the flywheel like normal, but make sure the sticker that says "FLYWHEEL SIDE" is going in the right direction.