Need quick advice from the pros!

[shifty]

Okay - here's my situation. Sorry for the big picture, but I want to show everything here.

Okay, I'm working on punching through the hydraulics for my clutch.
I was mapping out everything for the easiest possible punch-through spot - and this is what I came up with.

It goes right through the weld-in that forms a horseshoe over the column hole.

My questions:

1) If I remove the red circle section displayed, what is the possible impact?
Should I weld anything into place to reinforce?
I won't be putting pressure on that spot after drilling it - nothing will be bolted to the firewall there...
(I'm bolting the hydraulic cylinder to a bracket that will fasten using the stock nuts above it!)

2) There is a purple circle shown also - I am curious - My grommet there is split in half (half missing).
Does anyone sell this part? If so, what the heck is it called, and is it possible to replace?
How do you get it on the e-brake line?

[Green Machine]

#2 Parking Brake Grommet and most places like lmc and chevy duty have them, maybe even some of the board venders, they sell for less than 3 dollars. You may be able to unhook the line and slip it on or just cut open a side and slip it around.

[shifty]

The fun part is gonna be remembering how the steering column bolted up and figuring how to do it again with the aftermarket unit

[special-K]

Does it have to be there?I`d put the hole left of that if you could.

[shifty]

It would be easiest to put it right there, otherwise the other side of the cylinder will be too far off-center to get a good attachment onto the clutch pedal

i've been going back and forth on this one. i'd like to put it closer to the steering column hole, actually, down and to the left about an inch. that would be the best possible spot i could stick it from an ergonomics perspective, but i am 99% sure i'm gonna run into problems when i go to put in the new column, so i'm a little leery about it.


BTW - if you look in that picture you can see the hole in the clutch pedal i'm trying to mount it to (or near by that - that is my target). i should probably get a little bit lower than that red circle, but I gotta worry about the inner fender (I can reshape it, but only so much!). where i have the red cricle puts the cylinder on the driver's side of the pedal. if i put it down and to the right about 1" (relative) from the red circle, it's sitting on the passenger side of the clutch pedal.

[Huck]

When I did my hydrolic conversion using a clutch master cylinder from a 96 truck--I mounted on the right side of the coloumn. What I did was use the an original clutch pedal setup, fabed a piece to mount onto the right side of the clutch pedal shaft then ran a rod to the master cylinder off that. this put the master cylinder just to the right of the Brake booster bracket and still gave me access to check/fill the clutch master cylinder. The entire deal worked out pretty well with the exception of the speedo cable--never solved that one as the newer 5 speed was not a conversion candidate to go to cable drive--.

[shifty]

right-hand side of the column is going to be a bear for me, because it will interfere with my headers.