Rudder pedal mod to avoid dragging brakes

01 Nov 2021 Rudder pedal mod to avoid dragging brakes

This mod was to avoid accidentally dragging the brakes when pushing in the rudder pedal.

It’s just a piece of 0.75×0.75×0.125 angle riveted to the bottom of the pedals.

After making this modification to my rudder pedals, it was clear that I have been dragging my brakes since I started taxiing my RV-8. The angle of the standard rudder pedals is such that it’s almost impossible to apply any force without pushing down on the brakes. I’ve seem some people install a spring on the master cylinders, which might help. This mod works really well for me, even if it looks a bit crude. My feet can easily push on the angle and move the pedals without applying brakes, since the fulcrum for the brakes is above the lower bar of the angle. This was not the case before, the place where force was applied was about 1″ above the bottom of the pedal, which applied the brakes.

When I taxi, the aircraft moves easily at idle. This was not the case before. Also, after starting up in the grass, the aircraft moves at idle. I didn’t have to apply brakes before, and now I do. This is another clear indication that brakes where on while simply resting my feet against the rudder pedals.

The trigger for me to look at this was that I had a leaking right brake, and when looking at it I saw that the pad was very worn. This was quite surprising with only about 250 takeoffs/landings. The left brake pads have a bit more life on them, so I left them in place. Changing them is very easy – probably about 1-2 hours of work if I go at my normal very slow pace.

There are other ways to do this mod, like a tab below the pedal, a long bolt across the pedal, and a round tube in place of the angle. These other methods have worked well for other pilots. Some say “don’t bother, the standard design is perfect.” The fact is that this mod has worked really well for me, was really easy to install, and I knew that if I didn’t like it, it would be easy to remove. I think I’ll keep it!