How to Swap Your Plastic Clutch Pedal for a Metal One from an FJ Cruiser

I’m glad it’s appreciated. I don’t think a how to is worth doing unless it makes it easy enough to actually be not confusing. The flak is expected, that happens on pretty much any thread here by at least someone - typically someone who the thread doesn’t even apply to. Can’t make everyone happy

My way of taking out the MBECU added a significant number of steps (probably half of them in there), but ultimately it led to me not struggling on a single aspect of any of it. I’ve read the other write ups and it mostly involves laying on your back and reaching up into tiny spaces with long extensions and no ability to see. I hate crap like that and would rather just take the time to disassemble further. It’s the same reason why when I do trans fluid swaps, I remove the shifter and pour it in from on top - I hate pumping fluid and refuse to lie there on my back to do so.

I hear you on not doing the swap until you “need” to, which just may not ever happen. I certainly didn’t need to, I just wanted to and I don’t regret it, but can certainly understand not being in a rush to ever touch any of it.

 

Yeah I was considering going further and doing my radio rewire today while I had the left half of the dash out. I decided I wanted to be done with work for the day. It won’t take me long to redisassemble the dash for the radio rewire, so I’ll just redo that part soon and work on that another time. After the clutch pedal swap I had Jeep things to do anyways.

You’ll be fine. Definitely probably need more time if you’re adding wiring work to the job. The only part that really and truly sucks is getting brake fluid on your fingers. If you put towels where I show to and take care of the existing fluid following the methods I show, you shouldn’t make much of a mess at all. The rest is just changing the parts and setting them back up appropriately. Not a big deal, just the new pedal is “different” so it’s not immediately obvious how to adjust it to be right since your old pedal is a different design and doesn’t give you much to compare to.

 

I think a lot of the folks shaking their head on this might be the Automatic Tranny drivers, of which I am one! But if I put my MT driver hat on for a second, I guess I can see the value. Well done OP, and I was just busting your balls a little with my "War & Peace" joke.

 

Glad to see people using the information I posted. Half the time I write stuff like this I assume it’s for my own parts-related obsessions and not much more, haha.

Jeff

 

Lol, one of these days I’m going to use your info on the RC60/61F and make that swap….but my bank account needs to heal some before that. And I really don’t want to do the teardown work.

As always though, the info is much appreciated!

 

I’m a jealous AT driver and also read all of this. I would have done it also if I could. My 4Runner had a metal clutch pedal that snapped after 350k miles, those things are great, I doubt a 3rd gen one could do much better .Nice work OP!

 

great write-up. while it is not something i think i would do, i enjoyed it and learned something.

if i understand correctly, this took two hours from start to finish? that's impressive. it'd take me two days.

 

Instructions not clear; my Tacoma only has two pedals.

 

Yeah, 2 hours start to finish. Actually a bit less, but I wasn't really tracking time. It was like 10:30 to 12:20.

But, I got a practice run. I started the whole process a week before because I originally had all the necessary parts. Mid install, I got the pedal out and could not find all my parts to complete the swap, so I put the whole mess back together with the stock parts. That day took me 3-4 hours but I was going slow and I spent a long time searching for the missing parts. Never found them so I buttoned it back up and ordered the rest, then did the work this past Saturday.

 

You might have one of them newfangled models that needs holes drilled so you can bolt the pedal up!

 

“Why Toyota didn’t just use this on the Tacoma….I don’t know. It certainly would have made sense for all parties.”

My assumption is that it has to do with crash rating… though the cost savings can’t be overlooked, either. Pedal intrusion during the newer small overlap tests is measured. Leg tissue and bones will surely do better when coming in contact with the wide plastic piece vs the metal bar/shear.

 

Do FJs have different leg room than Tacomas? I could see your reasoning as being correct, if leg rooms are different. Otherwise the plastic pedal existed first, I’m surprised they wouldn’t just throw it into the FJ too. But I don’t really know.

 

Wanted to update this thread. After about a week, I noticed a light squeak sometimes when pressing the clutch, sometimes when letting it out. I got down and worked the pedal and listened for noise. It appeared to be the master cylinder rod, which I wasn’t sure how to fix. Then I looked back up at the clevis connection to the pedal and realized I had forgotten to lube it up in the heat of the moment during the swap/install.

I grabbed the clevis connection and held it tight with my fingers as I worked the clutch with my other hand. Noise = gone. Pulled the clevis, lubed up the inside diameter and the outer face of the clevis bushing, as well as the clevis pin itself. I used disc brake grease because it’s tacky and stays around a while. Reassembled the connection and all is well.



Also, I never liked the height of the stock clutch pedal. It’s awkwardly higher than the brake pedal and it engages pretty far off the floor. So, a few days ago I also took it upon myself to do some adjusting of the clutch pedal. I adjusted the upper limit switch at the top of the pedal (the one that controls cruise control disabling), and made it to where the pedal stops right in line with the brake pedal. Obviously I couldn’t leave the master cylinder hooked up like this, because this new lower height would be partially pushing on the master cylinder constantly, and of course semi releasing the clutch all the time. That would be no good. So I adjusted the master cylinder rod shorter (threaded it deeper into the clevis) until the clevis hole lined up again with the pedal hole, then reinserted the clevis pin and retightened the jam nut on the rod.

This makes it to where now the clutch pedal is the same height as the brake pedal, the clutch also starts to engage more quickly off the floor (but not too quickly at all), and it’s a safe mod because the clutch is still disengaged more than enough by the shorter pedal travel. That was my only concern but I am 100% sure I am still fully releasing the clutch for shifts. So overall I have a quicker pedal range. The travel for the clutch itself is still the same but it starts and ends sooner.

This adjustment could be made on the plastic pedal if desired, as well.

 

Great write up! What was the total cost of the parts for this mod?

 

I don’t know exactly, I got most of the parts for cheaper than new from a gentleman here who sold his truck. But he didn’t have all the parts I needed/wanted, so I did have to buy some additional parts online.

If you add the exact part numbers and quantities I listed (I checked them to see exactly what I used to help others) to a cart on Sparks Parts or similar, you can see what it would run you. I think it’s around $300.

 

Nice write up. I won't be doing this now, maybe when I get out of warranty. I'm only 10 months and 10k miles in, too new to dig in like that.

 

Appreciate the feedback, I always run a bang for your buck mental math when evaluating mods. Did the same with manifold spacer, short shifter, tune, accumator delete etc. I did have the TSB for the clutch pedal squeak and knock on wood it hasn't come back yet.

 

It’s been a little over a year and almost 25K miles with the FJ pedal. I’ve had it adjusted close to the brake pedal level at rest almost the whole time and it’s been perfect. The clutch could not feel better than this, in my opinion. It has a pretty short travel due to how I adjusted it, but it’s easy to modulate and it fully releases the clutch before hitting the floor, so it’s definitely doing what it needs to do.

 

Did you reuse the release spring? Mine is original and worn out( doesn't return released position nearly 1/2 the time)... also did you have to weld/ rig up any thing to hit the 2 sensors? Plan on doing this mod here really soon.