Help please - cracking firewall!!!

[fpv91]

Can somebody please help me!!

Does anyone know of a way to once and for all to stop the clutch cable tearing straight through the firewall on my EL? Car is off the road for the 3rd time (already patched it up twice!!). Last fix involved a section of 3mm steel plate (big enough area to run past the end of the cracking) welded on as a doubler over the original tin of the firewall. Lasted for a year, but now this thicker plate has yielded badly and pulled right in, to my disbelief. The car is fitted with a heavy duty clutch but i don't see how this would make any difference anyway? The pedal motion has always been relatively heavy (enough to fear peak hour traffic anyway) for as long as i've had the car (4 years).

Alternatively, has anyone had any luck / is it relatively straightforward to convert to a hydraulic setup? I'm at my wits end with this so any helpful advice would be appreciated!

[JUZXR8]

http://www.fordmods.com/fordmods-techni ... 66746.html


I know its a Fordmods thread, but its a common problem, this way u can DIY it

[SnipeZ]

Id replave the clutch cable when youve fixed it also

[SNR]

Nice link. I'd probably just plug weld the reinforcement in rather than screwing it. If you want to go to the trouble of removing the pedalbox, you can mount a plate on that to reinforce the firewall from behind. Another handy trick is to set the pickup point for the clutch as close to the floor as possible (obviously once everthing is fixed), as this puts much less strain on everything involved and means it will last a lot longer.

The stiff clutch could be a bent pedal pin, or sus clutch cable, so definitely look into both as suggested. Putting some WD40 down the sleeve of the clutch cable should show up any issues there.

[fpv91]

Thanks all.

After looking at the fordmods thread, this is essentially what i had already done myself, except not quite as neat! As I said the plate still yielded so buggered if I know why.

When I did the second fix, I swapped out the clutch cable.... snapped it after 6 months of use. So in went the OEM cable again which is still going strongly (somehow!). I did notice the clutch action was slightly lighter with the other cable but i just assumed that was because some geometry points were bound to have moved when we put the new section in.

SNR, I'm assuming when you say pickup point for the clutch as close to the floor as possible you mean adjust the nut on the cable thread? The t5 in the car is pretty secondhand (car is supercharged and i've been known to give it a hard time every once in a while) and the synchros have seen better days so when i set the pedal to take up closer to the floor i struggle to get it into gear at all....

[Gekko/bazzalong]

convert it to hydraulic champ, get the info for your pedal setup from bbqburner, hes setup his to suit the T56, and heres some brackets you can make to mount the slave from a PD/PE courier ( you will need to get the rod from ford),









i converted my AU to hydraulic (just had to rework it) and it has the sweetest lightest feel ive ever used

if you dont think you could do this you could throw a mal wood setup in

cheers
Al