Here's a picture of what the PO installed for passing the clutch cable through the firewall. I might not have worried about it too much, but I never liked how long it was and besides the engine is out for overhaul so now is the time to take care of such things.

This is what I found underneath. I expected to see a crack in the firewall, but not a hole this big. When I look into the hole I can see the end of the clutch tube, but it is several inches up inside the center tunnel.

So... where do I start with this? Fortunately I have a 71 parts car that looks like the same area is intact so I have a donor for materials. The fuel lines are about to get pulled in preparation for moving the fuel pump to the front so they won't be an issue.

Why are you pulling the perfectly good fuel lines? The factory left them in when they moved the pump to the front ............ They're NOT a failure item.

You need to get a good look at how the tube goes in. In fact, you should cut open the tunnel of the parts car and take out the tube. Make sure you keep a nice big piece of the firewall. There are THREE welds, one in the front, one at the firewall, and one aft of the shifter. They ALL need to be there. Since the engine is out, there's a lot of room to work. If you keep the fuel lines cool and insulated from the welding, they'll be fine. Wet rags do just fine. The center bracket is important in keeping the tube clear of the shift rod and improves the rigidity of the tube. The front weld locates the tube in 2 dimensions and prevents tearing of the other 2 points. HTH, The Cap'n

So if the clutch tube from my donor isn't up to re-use, is there a source on a new tube? I looked at Restoration Design and Pelican Parts, but don't see it listed on either site.

I was reading the "Clutch Tube Fixes" in the Classic Message Threads section and it referred to a link to some pictures by Brad at http://www.all914.com/projects/Drobbins/cl...befix/index.htm

This seems to be a dead link and I remember Brad talking about taking down all914.com so I wasn't surprised, but I'm wondering if they got moved anywhere else.

search the pelican site too. It was covered there quite a bit a few years back.