Pedals installed, floating floor and now the emblems

I finished the rear rocker boxes a couple weeks ago and moved on to finaling my cobbled-up pedal set. Here’s the passenger side rocker box all done:

I have never seen a fiberglass replica with the whole reinforcement box, all five lower ovals and an upper hole in the back. The passenger side upper is oversized compared to what’s right; it’ll be behind the accumulator so no biggie. The driver’s side one, which will be in full view, is round as original. 

I had to pull the wire harness through that side, so it’s got holes and rubber grommets now. There are also grommets in the ‘glass body.

The main wire bundle just fits through that snug. It was quite a chore to then get it to bend and go through the new rocker aluminum I’d riveted in.

Anyway. All done.

From there I pulled out the pedals and bushed them with nylon bearings from McMaster. I could have got away without doing this, but the pedals as assembled had just a little play in them, and I realized that the copper pipe bushings I’d pressed in were still swaged from the pipe cutter. That meant they would be getting loser as the edges wore away. So I ground them out and these new nylon pieces fit perfect.

With that done I decided to make the floating floor. This is just a simple bit of birch plywood over 1-inch purlins, to create a void for the brake and clutch lines and what-not to run under.

I coated all the wood with Pelucid before assembly, and also painted the edges of the plywood black to seal it. Then I brushed spar urethane over the bottom for good measure.

From there it was cutting out the ribbed rubber mat. This looks a lot like the vinyl Porsche originally used on these cars—so much so that some restorers have substituted the material. It really is better, having been made to withstand foot traffic.

Glued this down with contact cement, which was a real nightmare. My mistake was in trimming it to fit first. The pros know to just trace the shape with a marker and spray the glue all over both sides, then lay the hard, stiff thing down on the flimsy material.

But I got it done.

Here’s how it looked just before the final quarter-inch edge trim:

Here’s a comparison between what I made and the pedals on 550-0056 (Courtesy of Type550.com):

The real deal:

And my car:

With that handled I started drilling the little holes to fit the emblems and such.

Man this primer’s getting dirty. Kind of a cool look though.

OK, I think it’ll look better painted too.

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