Topic: pushing the firewall out

[DiGGeR77]

We'll I'm in the planning stages of pushing out the drivers side firewall 3-4" to give my long legs some more room to extend. I'm 6'-7" and I already moved my seat back as far as I could possibly go with still being able to reach the steering wheel and shifter. I still need to get my Knee's down and moving the pedals out a few inches would help drastically. at 1st glance It looks like it can be done. I realize I'll have to pull the tub, but fab wise it looks kinda easy. Any thing I might be missing or should take into consideration (besides resale value)?

[Jeffy]

Firewall strength would be something to think about.  Then the hassle of having to separate the firewall from the cowl then having to move it forward while still having the hood work.  Not to mention, there isn't a lot of room to push forward unless you move the engine forward.

Resale value would be the least of your worries.  Liability would be #1.

If you moved the seat further back, can you still reach the steering wheel OK?  You can make rails that will move the seat further back a few inches and it would be a LOT easier then pushing out the firewall.

[DiGGeR77]

I already modified the driver seat to slide back til it comes to the rest on the roll bar. I can and will goto a DOM rollcage and I'll make sure the new location will not interfer with the seat, but I'm at the point now that the steering wheel is becoming uncomfortly far away, and so is the shifter. I already took into consideration rebending the shifter and extending the steering column to accomadate a farther back seat location, but The firewall idea came into play.

[Bounty Hunter]

I would just cut a rectangle out of the firewall on each side of the steering column and weld on boxes that extend into the engine compartment.  Should be able to push the pedals forward and get a little more leg room.  May not even have to remove the tub if you do the welding from inside the floorboard.

[sharpxmen]

just a thought - did you try lowering the seat? - that might give you a bit more room for your knees (and since you're quite tall you won't have a problem with seeing above the steering wheel). Not sure if this would work but it might be worth a shot to do a test with the rails/mount out and some 2x4s under the seat to see how it feels - would be a lot easier than cutting into the f/w and repositioning the pedals (and with that the brake and clutch master cylinders).

[Jeffy]

The potential problem I see with having to extend the firewall is getting rid of the taper in the floor.  You're going to have to flatten it to move the pedals back, I think.

The problem I see with welding in boxes is that the masters needs to be a certain distance from the pedals.  So if you move the pedals forward, the masters will be too long.  You might be able to adjust the brake but the clutch would probably need to be moved forward as it uses all of it's throw.  Now that I think about it, you would need to move the booster since the master is behind the booster and it would probably hit it if you moved it 3-4".

Lowering the seat would cause the same problem, I think.  Lowering the seat will force him to extend his legs more.


Even if you had to redo the cage and shifter then pulling the steering column out a bit I think it would be more straight forward.  Locate the proper seat placement then build the cage around it.  Another idea is to go with a suspension seat.  These use very little foam and no springs so they are a lot thinner.  You could get 2" out of the seat and then only have to move it back another 2" to get you 4"

[neale_rs]

You could try raising the seat and getting a tilt steering wheel.  I´m only 6' 2" but had a similar problem in my old GPW (much smaller jeep). Using a thicker pad to sit on helped a lot.