4kq Owners Beware - (firewall saga, cont.)

["Matthew Brenengen" <qcar@hotmail.com>]

A word of warning to all 4kq owners, especially if you are having 
trouble shifting into 1st or 2nd, check your firewall for cracks around 
the clutch master cylinder.  I was at the bone yard this morning looking 
for a firewall piece to repair mine.  Both 4kq’s with just over 100k had 
cracks in the firewall in the same place as mine.  I think if you were 
to repair it before it really started to break, you could save 
yourselves a lot of trouble later.

If the cracks are large, you will probably have to do what I have done 
(although I am not finished yet – I’ll tell you if it works for sure 
later).  I spent a couple of hours at the yard removing the donor’s 
front seat, radiator overflow, clutch and brake master cylinder, brake 
booster, all the wires and stuff going through the fire wall, etc.  It 
is very simple to remove the seat, and it makes working under the dash 
ten times easier.  It was actually kind of fun taking everything apart, 
especially since I didn’t have to worry about it going back together.

Once everything is cleared out, I used a small hand, hacksaw (shaped 
like a gun) to cut from one hole (the ones where all the wires went 
through) to the other.  On the side opposite from the holes, there is a 
lot of open space.  I was able to cut a straight line okay, but had to 
drill a couple of holes to make the turns.  I now have a piece roughly 
6”x6”.  This is about as big a piece as will be possible to bolt on the 
inside without having to remove anything other than the clutch master 
nuts and the rod that goes to the peddle.

Today I glued up the cracks from the outside (in the engine compartment) 
with JB Weld.  I need to have someone with a welder reinforce the heck 
out of my patch before I give it a try.

Matthew Brenengen
’87 4kq
’88 QSW
’76 2002


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