Building a street rod is not unlike trying to fit 10 pounds of stuff into a 2-pound bag; there are lots of parts to put in a vehicle that doesn’t have room for many of them. When faced with such a dilemma there are but two logical choices: make the stuff smaller or the bag bigger. We’ve applied that thought process to a Model A pickup.
Kugel’s underdash swing pedal assembly is compact and occupies one of the few areas of a Model A street rod that’s not stuffed full of something.
Judging by diminutive dimensions of a Ford pickup cab we suspect people were somehow miniaturized in the days of the A, an issue addressed in the Oct. ’10 issue of Street Rodder when we introduced the stretched version offered by Kelvin Waddington in Australia (check the Roadster Ute website for U.S. distributors). The addition of 6 inches behind the doors means these bigger little haulers can house full-size people in comfort, which prompted Editor Brennan to undertake building one. But while there is more room inside for husky editorial types there are some necessary parts that require space that remains scarce, namely the brake and clutch linkage and master cylinders.
While it’s common to use floor pedals in street rods, those assemblies often have to share the limited underbody space with a variety of things, including with the exhaust system. Not only does that present packaging challenges, it can expose the master cylinders and hydraulic lines to excessive heat, which can degrade their operation. An obvious cure is to use swing pedals, but then the master cylinders protrude into the engine compartment. What was needed in this application was a more compact arrangement so the dynamic duo of Brennan and Waddington turned to Kugel Komponents for one of their underdash pedal assemblies. Kugel’s offers a number of swing pedal assemblies—brakes or brakes and hydraulic clutch with master cylinders mounted through the firewall or under the dash at 90- or 180-degree angles. For this application the 90-degree style was used.
This pedal unit mounts the master cylinder at a 90-degree angle (sideways); a bellcrank transfers motion from the pedal to the master cylinder. The clutch master cylinder is mounted at 180 degrees (facing to the rear).
As mounting positions vary greatly, Kugel’s pedal assemblies are universal in design and brackets for them have to be fabricated. However, since the 90-degree pedals are such a natural in a Model A, Kelvin has designed a kit to install them in his cabs. While the installation shown here is in a specific vehicle, Kugel’s compact underdash swing pedal assemblies can be adapted to a variety of other space-challenged rods. Think of them as 2 pounds of stuff for that 10-pound bag.
