67 Mustang clutch safety switch

Gee, I’m blogging again! Life in the shop is pretty much full-time trying to get my 67 Mustang back on the road! So, a safety switch for the clutch in a 67 Mustang? Did it ever have one? The almighty search engine doesn’t reveal one to me:(  Guess I’ll have to make one;)

That’s me in the middle and a couple curious onlookers! Where’s the clutch safety switch?? oh, I’m sorry, that’s Sean the Sheep!;)

With the entire system setup as you see, I can stare at it visualizing a clutch switch, or Clutch interlock switch, and no, the hydraulic clutch isn’t working yet:(

Why do I need one? All stick-shift cars today have a clutch safety switch! If there weren’t, cars/trucks would be crashing through walls/doors, etc!!

I won’t go into grizzly detail, but it took a couple of days to figure a clutch switch out, not to mention computer time, and eventually ordering a possible switch!

First, I had some 3/4″ square tubing lying around, and I cut a slot with a 4″ cutoff wheel, then welded that to a piece of 3/4″ flat bar to be able to bolt it to the swingarm mount. A piece of the same 3/4″ flat bar I welded to the clutch pedal, had to do some grinding for clearance.

Now, as crude as it may look, I used some of the same 3/4″ flat bar to make the slide and adjusting ability. The clutch switch I used is from a 99 Miata or so, 5.00 bucks on ebay.

Running it through its range of motion, I achieved a direct contact without is “sliding” possibly eroding the tip of the plastic~ don’t want to wear it out!;)

“wax on, wax off; wax on, wax off” what’s that from?

With foot pressure applied: Notice on the actuator arm, I had to grind more metal off of it for clearance.

With the foot off the clutch:

With the instrument cluster removed, well, mines been not there for a long time and same goes for the under the dash wiring harness, it’s easy to see and service;)

I thought there would be more room under the dash area, but there is a 1/2″ to spare between the little flat bar and the cowl! Perfect!

I’m not quite done, still have to wire the switch. The wiring under the dash was for a C4 automatic trans. I’ll be using the wiring which goes to the neutral safety switch to make this work~ hopefully;) There may be better ways, even something stock, but this will have to do for now;)

A short blog indeed~ I’ll be back to add to it after I see that it’ working effectively!

dne’ 😉