Europa Pedals

I made a pedal set for Dr.Linda's S2 Europa. The original, seen on the left, has about 50% returned to the earth. It is a common problem with Europas, especially those that have sat a long time (AKA "Free Range Europas.") As I put a Toyota 1NZFE drive train in and made a new frame from 304, I am using the clutch MC from the Scion instead of the cable clutch from the Renault that the car came with. The brake MC is a $25 Cardone unit from a 70's Ford Courier. It doesn't have a stop, so I added an return overtravel stop to my pedal set.

I had found some 1/8" 304 plate dumpster diving behind work one day, so I made the pedals out of 2 pieces of that, welded together. The rest of the materials I had left over from the Locost and the Europa frame. 3/4" OD 125 wall tubing, and some 1/2" 304 rod a friend gave me.

Most things on a Lotus of this era are really simple and can be replicated in a moderately equipped shop. The design is really good, actually, when you think about it. Cheap, easy to manufacture, effective, light weight. The problem is that the original rusts away. This one won't. Anyway, if you need a pedal set for your project, think about something like this. I had considered buying or making a hanging pedal set with 3 MC's, like the Tilton I put on the Locost. That is an expensive setup. I had the clutch MC already, and the Cardone MC is dirt cheap. Add in that a hanging set would take a lot of re-engineering and fiberglass mods, and setting it up like this made more economic and time sense. Just didn't have an original pedal set to use. Got some pics and measurements from the guys on teh europa list, and made it in about 2 days of work. Would have been a lot easier with a plasma cutter instead of a hack saw and a saws-all-like tool, but you use what you have.

Very cool.

looking good!

For the rubber part of the pedal, I was thinkin... What if you took a piece of tire, like found on the side of the road, or a motorcycle tire, whatever, cut out a rectangle the size of the flat part, drilled a couple 1/8" holes through it, counter sunk the holes, smeared the back with adhesive like gorilla glue and pop riveted that to the pedal? I think if I could find a tire that wasn't steel belted, that would be best. Anyone ever try that?

You need some pulley lagging for the pads.

Call Belt Service in St Louis, MO and ask for some samples.

If you run into any headaches let me know and I can send you some.

In reply to Dr. Hess:

What about the rubber coating you can dip tools in to cover the pedals with?

Plasti dip. is what I was thinkng of. maybe make some kind of stamp to press a surface onto it.

everytime I read plastidip i think of this fool that works in my building that plastidipped an entire new WRX. lol, because of that I always forget it has legitimate uses.

I would find some pedal pads from an air cooled VW and trim the metal to fit them. Or if you want bigger, look through a Junkyard until you find pedals you like and cut and grind the metal to fit them

I don't think Plasti-Dip is tough enough for this application. Even hard rubber wears off of pedals. The ACVW sugegstion is interesting in that I have a pic of someone's Europa pedal set that a PO had put those exact rubber bits on. You can see the VW logo. I am kinda trying to do this on a budget, though, thus the tire thoughts. It is pretty easy to go crazy on buying Europa parts, and blowing thirty large on a car you can sell for half that is not uncommon. I mean, I could buy a 304 pedal Europa set on eBay (GRM advertiser) for four bills today. I have $0 in these, not counting consumables.

The belt pulley stuff sounds interesting. 93gsxturbo, if you'll PM me, I'll give you my mailing address. Put some in a manilla envelope and I'll be happy to paypal you for it.

That original pedal setup looks just like a TR7 unit. Bet you could have just started with one of those. After all, that's what TVR used in the Tasmin.

Does the TR7 set hinge at the bottom? According to teh fleabay, this is a TR7 unit:

which is quite a bit different. As far as I know, no one has crossed a Europa pedal set over to any other vehicle, and teh Europa boyz are pretty thorough on that kinda thing.

nice work!

I would be tempted to just grind a shallow grid pattern into the pedal for grip.

How about grip tape , or expanded metal for ghetto effect ?

I thought of roughing up the pedals. But, having put >30K miles on a Europa, from experience it is frequently necessary to drive the car with your shoes off and I didn't want anything that would tear up my socks. That non-skid tape isn't a bad idea. We kids in SoCal pioneered that for skateboards. They are probably useable as they are, but I'd like something on there to aid grip. The rubber bit came off on one of the Esprit (RIP) pedals, and I can't really say I missed it.

Just hit the local pick-n-pull and and snag some rubber bits from a wreck. Get something close and then grind your peddles to fit. VW ones would work just fine.

What about cutting down a hockey puck? Should be a good compromise for workability, wearability, and especially cost.

I know here in NJ, metal pedals are illegal. When they used to do safety inspections, they would fail you for them. You had to have some sort of non-slip covering on them. I used that Grip tape on my Fiats, worked great

Along the lines of non-skid tape: wing walk compound. Worked well on a sports racer. I drilled holes (5/16" or so) through the pedal faces so dirt wouldn't build up and brushed on the compound. Grip was great.

Maybe not suitable for a DD or shoeless tho.

my .02

Hockey pucks seem to be a universal rubber donor. I have a couple extra that I bought to go between jack stands and the car or the jack and the car. I bought a half dozen on ebay. That's the clutch MC I got from you, oog.

Seeing as how even BB guns are illegal in NJ, I don't think I'll be moving (or traveling through) NJ, so I'm not too worried about getting inspected there.

Hockey pucks are super hard, and hard wearing. If you can get them to stick to the pedal, that would work great.

I'm woundering if bedliner would be grippy enough to work in this application?

If you drive it shoeless, why not use some insole material from a shoe?