Well I am now digging into a clutch cable tube repair, so I thought I would document the steps just in case someone might want to save it. Here it goes!

This is my dad cutting away at the front of the tunnel to get to the front mount on the tube...

Cool, but it's been documented pretty well here. :-) Good luck with your repair.

One of the better threads on this:

http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?sho...c=28313&hl=

Here are pictures of the measurements for the front tunnel cut, sorry they are a little blurry ...

Start the cut at about 2.5" from the center of the front left shifter bolt hole (as seen in first pic)...

The cut doesn't need to be any longer than 4" (second pic)...

Wow! That is a really good thread on this! Well, I might as well just finish up what I started so I will just for my own fun Thanks
-Chris

Here is the broken front tube mount in the tunnel ...

Or you could just do what I will be doing . . . . Place entire stripped shell on rotisserie. Remove entire rotted and rusty floorpan. Fix items in tunnel and weld on shiny new floor. See, easy as 1, 2, 3.

All kdding aside, nice work!

you don't actually need to cut the tunnel ...

there's a thread here somewhere showing where to drill two holes to weld the clamp back on, lemmy see if i can find it ...


and make sure you check the rear firewall as well, the tube likes to brake lose there too ...
Andy

Here are the measurements for the middle bracket cut...

I started the cut at about 1.5" from the center beam (first pic)...

Doesn't need to be more than 2.5" wide (second pic)...

I wish I could do that! I only have the time for some quick cutting and welding unfortunately Should still turn out fine though! Thanks
-Chris

Here is the broken middle bracket ...

I saw the thread for drilling the holes... I just thought it would be easier to have a nice opening to get to the bracket And I looked at the firewall too ...

That's all I have for now. Hopefully all of the welding will be done tomorrow I'll continue posting when I make some more progress! Thanks
-Chris

watch those fuel lines !!!

Andy

I did this repair back in 1987

Did quite a bit of damage!!

For what it is worth, the welding is a good repair, but for people that do not have welding capability in their shop, or who don't want to weld near the gas lines, there is an alternative. After about the first 85000 miles on my car, my tube broke, similar to those shown in the threads. I pulled the tube out, and took it to a shop and had an offset flange welded to the rear. This flange was about 3/16 thick, and was about 1 1/2" x 2" or so inches, and had the tube welded to the lower right hand side of it. I had two holes drilled away from the tube, and then just drilled two holes in the rear firewall and bolted the tube in. I reached the nuts for the bolts on the inside of the car from the access port between the seats. for the front end of the tube, I put two electical conduit clamps from opposite sides and bolted them through the floor. This repair lasted over 120,000 more miles with no problems. I recently replaced the floor pans, and while I was in there, I re-welded the tube in, but I imagine my rigged fix was probably stronger than the original design. I just mentioned this in case someone wanted to do a little less demanding or maybe a temporary repair. JoeO

Thanks, Chris, good stuff

patrick

How hard is it to remove those fuel lines? My friend is coming over today with his welder to finish up the remaining work. I don't want anything happening with those fuel lines, so if theres an easy way to remove them from the picture, temporarily, please let me know! Thanks!
-Chris

when i welded my clutch tube, i had a fire extinguisher ready and i simply wrapped a couple of wet rags around the fuellines before i started welding. worked for me.

removal of the fuel lines is kind of a PITA ... i later replaced mine with stainless steel lines. but that's a different story ...

just be careful and make sure your fire extinguisher works ...

I was hoping an approach like that would be ok. My dad says he has some sort of heat wrap material that he can wrap around the fuel lines while we take care of the welding so I'm pretty sure everything will work out ok there. My friend should be here within the next couple hours so the welding process will hopefully begin soon! Thanks!
-Chris

The wet rags approach should work better than any sort of heat shield. Gasoline needs ~500F to ignite. So keeping the metal near the fuel lines cool is key. The heat will conduct from the welding area to the fuel area independent of any heat shield. But wet rags would suck the heat out of the metal pretty efficiently.