Posting this for a good friend. (WE4) He has a '69 SS big block car that appears to have "oilcanned", for you old-timers, the firewall where the accelerator pedal attaches. The firewall is cracked and when you press the pedal it wants to poke the mount through the firewall. This would be an otherwise easy fix however the car must be repaired without removing the engine. I suggested welding the same section of firewall from a donor car over the damaged area and re-attaching the pedal. What I want to know is does anyone have any other suggestions or opinions regarding this problem.

Thanks in advance,

John

Wow, that's a new one on me. Never heard of that. How does that happen? The only thought that comes to mind would be welding metal straps of some kind from the inside to strengthen the wall area around the mount. That would be very difficult to do with the carpet and wiring with the tight space to work in. Maybe bolt the straps to the firewall from the inside? Tough one.
Why can't the motor come out to do this?
Is the firewall metal ripped in this area?
I'm curious now. http://www.camaros.net/forum/biggrin.gif

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Steve
67 SS 396,4-sp
67 RS 327,4-sp
72 RS 350/350
69 4X4 suburban 350,4-sp
73 3/4 ton 454/400
Stevo Camaro's Toy (http://www.geocities.com/stevocamaro)
Our Muscle Cars (http://community.webshots.com/user/steve_lynell)

Yes the firewall has a horizontal tear through the middle of the pedal mount approx 4" long. Anly thing I know is the motor must stay in. The firewall pad in this area is gone so it's just a matter of pulling the carpet back. I also think a patch could be pop-riveted in as a temp fix but the firewall is curved in that area and matching the curves without a donor car patch might be difficult. How about a different pedal assembly from another make/model? How about a floor mounted pedal? Just throwing these out and thinking out loud. Let me know what you think.

John

There are a lot of wrinkles in that area and even if you had a donor car piece, I doubt if it would match very well.
I'd look at the Lokar throttle linkage. Maybe consider switching it to a cable setup.
Either way, it would be nice to either weld or rivet a patch over the crack from the inside.

If you do rivets, use an epoxy glue and use Avex aircraft rivets. They are strong, and hold the center mandril in the body so you don't have leaks through the center of the rivet.
David

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67 RS 327
69 Camaro Vintage Racer
65 Lola T-70 Chev 350
Can Am Vintage Racer

Thanks David. Some good ideas. I'll let you know what the fix turns out to be.

Thanks,

John

John

Had a similar problem a while back with the area between the clutch and the fuse block on my 69. I've got a 5-spd with a hydraulic clutch and a master cylinder that mounts on the firewall. The master cylinder bolts had ripped the firewall. I ended up cutting a couple of plates to sandwich the firewall between and riveted them in place. I've got another problem now though...just broke the linkage rod from the clutch pedal to the master cylinder - posting another message about this later.

Here's a try at a couple of pics....
http://users.ev1.net/~martyp/69camaro/fwtear.jpg http://users.ev1.net/~martyp/69camaro/fwfix.jpg

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Marty

69 Camaro, 350, TrickFlow heads, T5, 3.73

[This message has been edited by 69CamaroSS (edited 05-20-2001).]