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my clutch master cylinder relocation project continued today. last weekend I built the basic “box” that will allow me to bring the master in-board a couple of inches to clear the power brake booster. next I needed to fill the hole left when I removed the stock wiring harness firewall block. I’m installing a new, universal 18 circuit harness with modern blade fuses (no more glass fusses!). first I actually trimmed away MORE of the firewall to create an easier shape for the fill panel. then I used card stock to figure out what the panel should look like. I did several trial mockups before I was ready to commit the panel to metal. I cut the rough shape with my electric shears and the finished the piece on a bench grinder. the Clarke electric shears I have are great. I think I remember Fran from the amc forum raving about them a few years ago which is why I bought them. I’d love to have a band saw but these shears are proving to be a great tool for making various things from sheet stock. I also had to shorten the clutch push rod and cut thread further down the shaft to match up with the clutch pedal. oh, one other nice thing about doing this relocation is that I realized I no longer had to mount the reservoir remotely. this is a wilwood remote master and I previously had the reservoir mounted to the shock tower. but where the master will be now I can mount the reservoir right to the master… nice. I can even unscrew and remove the reservoir cap no problem. no entirely sure I can fill it without a funnel though, we’ll see. anyway, that’s it for now.

So to get the driveline angle at the need 3* down I had to open up a very LARGE hole in the trans tunnel. I originally made a small hole just for the shifter to poke out. Everything was looking great and thought, “this is going to be easy”. Then I got concerned about driveline angle and consulted some people on the pro touring forum. They confirmed that you must have 2* to 3* (but not more) down angle on the engine and a corresponding up angle on the pinion for the draft shaft u-joints to work properly. Looking at the AMC technical service manual seemed to confirm this as well so I got out the sawzall and massacred my transmission tunnel. I even had to hack out the center support because it was interfering with the yoke joint.

To make up for the lost center support I welded in some square tubing and skinned the top of it with 16G steel. I then used cardboard to make a template of the shape I needed to cover up the hole. Once I had the template the way I wanted it I cut the shape out of 16G and went to work bending and hammering it into shape. This post could have been called “I love clecos” because they were very helpful in holding the cover in place as I worked around the perimeter. The front is not pretty but it will never be seen so I’m not stressing it too much. I had to split the front and then bend one piece over the other. I then welded the seam up. The big trans patch panel has a large opening that allows me full access to all the shifter plate bolts. I also created a smaller cover plate with a round hole just big enough for the shifter to poke through. I welded nuts on the bottom of the big patch panel and undercoated the bottom of it before adding seam sealer around the perimeter and riveting it in place. the top cover then bolts to the patch with some allen head bolts. here are the pics: