I thought I should ask before I button up my floors...

I have built new clutch cable and accelerator tubes in my center tunnel. I ran the tubes maybe 4-6" further towards the front of the car than the originals. It seemed like it might be easier to feed the cables that way. Is this okay, or should I cut them back to the normal length? Also, about how far should they poke through the rear firewall? Do they need to point straight to the rear of the car, or are they supposed to be angled? My original firewall was really mangled around the clutch and accelerator tube area, so I don't have a good reference for how the factory did it.

TIA

Adding length to the tube inside the tunnel may be looking for trouble. Not saying it won't work but why chance it. Not easy to repair later. A little extra length in the rear while welding in place is OK. You can cut it later. Be sure to trial fit the cables in the tubes before buttoning up everything. You may find the cable end won't push through some bends you have made.

Be carefull , it is easy to twist the gas cable and the clutch cable when installing one or the other just aft of the pedal cluster.

Thanks, I have test fit the clutch cable and accelerator cables. All is well there. They fit the McMaster-Carr tubing perfectly.

What Al mentions is kinda why I thought it might be okay to run the tubes a little further forward. It seems like it might decrease the chance of them getting caught on something, twisted, etc..

Here are some pics of what I'm talking about. Everything is just tacked in place, but it obviously gets harder to make adjustments once the front floor half is in place.

Here's the front of the tubing. Not a great pic, but you can see where the original guide tubes were attached to the inside of the tunnel about 4"-6" back from the ends of the new tubes. Should I bend these so they are parallel with the floorpan? Will it matter?



Here's the view from the engine bay. I added a washer to reinforce the new firewall where the clutch tube failed before. Hopefully this will hold for the lifetime of the car. I deleted the heater pull cable tubes and ran a new tube for a hand throttle since I will have carbs. Im not sure how short to cut these, or if they need to be bent so they point straight towards the rear of the car.

Click to view attachment

This is a picture of an original tunnel with all the tubes and fuel line in place. Keep in mind, though, the picture is upside down....hope it will help.

Instead of spot welding the tube to the tunnel, it's better to put a clamp around it and weld the clamp to the tunnel.

The spotwelds *will* break since there's a lot of form working on those every time to press down on the clutch pedal ...

You eat a lot of popcorn!!

I would make the clutch tube as short as possible. . because when pushing the pedal, the cable doesn't really go in a straight line and you don't want the cable rubbing on a raw edge of the front of the tube. . if nothing else, the front of the tube should be bell mouthed or billowed out so if the cable rubs, it's on a smooth edge if anything. .

Since you still have the bottom open, mount the pedals and run the cable thru the tube and bend the end to give yourself the best straight shot alignment with the clutch lever

SirAndy, I made clamps for the clutch tube and accelerator tube out of some flat scrap. No pics, but it looks like the factory clamps that were brazed into the tunnel. I'll try those. Not sure if I weld or silver solder them in place, or how they could provide more support than welding, but I will use them. Thanks!

toolguy, I'll test fit the cable I have with my pedal cluster before I weld the floors in. I had never thought of the cable moving up and down, but that makes perfect sense. Thanks! The tubing I used is too heavy to flare with the tools I have access to, but I did do a recessed crown kind of thing with a 3/8" drill bit and a round file on it, so hopefully, it won't fray the cable as it travels up and down.

I'll post some more pics before I close everything up.

Thanks again for the help.

I got some plastic tubing and cut some short pieces lengthwise for the accelerator cable and clutch cable and slid them under where they enter in at the front so they have a nice place to slide instead of rubbing on the metal.

The one for the accelerator cable was a real rascal in getting it started in. Sticks in my mind it was 3/16" tubing.

If you extend the tube farther outside the firewall than stock, your cables will be too short. Fact of life. The front doesn't matter.

The Cap'n

I cut the tubes at the rear firewall back and test fit my cables with the pedal cluster. I also made some clamps for the tubes like Andy mentioned. I dont have the contraption to connect the accelerator cable to the cluster, but I worked the through the pedal clust motion the best I could and I think this is going to be okay. Unless someone posts here and says I really need to change something I think I am going to weld everything in place and close up the floors tomorrow morning. Thanks again for your help everyone.

The tubes in the back section still look a tad long. I COULD BE WAY WRONG with that but, I agree with El Crappytano... they will affect the usable range and adjust-ability of the cable if they're wrong. May want to get some measurements on all those.