When all the work on the sump was done and the shortblock had been fitted to the car for yet another trialfit, I decided to put the cylinderhead complete with the manifolds on the shortblock in order to sort out any other troublespots. It didn't take long to find one. The clutch mastercylinder was very very close to the exhaust manifold, maybe a gap of 10mm. So I decided to shift the mastercylinder as far away from the manifold as practically possible without going to major modifications (with the brake booster out of the way this was now possible, see the pages on fitting the power steering). I reckoned that by shifting the pushrod from one side of the clutchpedal to the other, I could gain about an extra 25mm of space bringing the total gap between the mastercylinder and the exhaust manifold to about 35mm. Still very close but by putting a heatshield between the two I should be able to prevent the clutch cylinder from getting too hot. As I was playing around with shifting the brake booster I had already removed the complete pedal assembly from the car. Shifting the pushrod is a simple procedure. I drilled out the original pin through the clutch pedal and made a new one to be inserted from the other side. After welding this in place and welding on a new tab for the return spring it was just a matter of reassembling the pedals to determine exactly how far over the pushrod had been shifted so that the (bolt)holes for the mastercylinder could be shifted a corresponding amount. The hole in the firewall has to be shifted as well of course.


Once this was all done the springs were fitted back onto the pedals ( the clutch servo spring is bloody strong!) and the whole unit bolted back into place. In this next view you can see how far the mastercylinder has been shifted and why it wasn't practical to shift it any more.

On the other side of the engine the battery no longer fits in its standard location due to the intake manifold being in the way. The battery will fit if turned through 90deg. although it is also a tight fit. I made a very simple cradle using the original bolt holes.

I still need to make the hold down clamps probably using the existing ones suitably modified. At least this way, keeping the battery in much the same place, I don't need to rewire as much. While on the subject of rewiring, at this stage I also mounted the ignition module and shifted the rear window and headlight washer resevoir to the other side of the engine bay. The washer resevoir had to be shifted to make room for the brake booster.