April 2014 - Starting Work on the Capri - Crossmember/Trans Mount

Before starting work on the Capri I set about acquiring the parts that I wanted to put on the car one assembly being an 8 Stack EFI system which proved to be a disaster but more on that later. When we did the initial trial fit of the engine trans we realized that the cross member would need to be relocated towards the back by about 3 inches in order for the transmission mount to properly engage it. After doing some about so measuring and looking at what I had available to work with we came up with a cross member that mounted in the original holes and extended back to pick up the trans mount. I added a support between the mount and the floor to take up some of the torque that the three inch extension would be adding onto the original factory fastener bolts. Photos below show what we worked up.

74 - Capri Perana Clone - Engine Fitting - When I started this project all of the research I did pointed to the fact that the engine should drop right in without requiring any modification to the body or relocation of any under hood components. So when I initially started I anticipated having it bolted to the mounts in an afternoon - More fool me. I think the combination of edelbrock heads, with high ratio rockers with their attendant taller rocker covers and the Inglese 8 stack induction system combined to make an initial fit impossible.

After pulling the engine out of the way we stripped everything out of the engine bay and tried again. This time it went in and settled onto the mounts but it is a very tight fit at the back of the engine to the firewall. Tight but workable!

Photo below shows what we ended up with.

With the engine installed I then tried to reinstall the Brake master cylinder and after much fudging about concluded that there was no way it would fit so ended up installing a Mustang unit which was the first of several tried over the course of the build.

As seen in the photo the steering linkage was going to be an issue with the Equal length headers.

Marking this thread for further review; strange new person doing Perena clone with no background info.

74 Capri Perana Clone Clutch Cable and Trans Hump.

OK, So with the engine and trans in place it was time to figure out how I was going to activate the clutch. Both cars used cable clutches so that was at least working in my favor. But as will be seen in the photos following there were significant differences between the two cables.

After puzzling about this for a bit I concluded that the answer was to use the Mustang inner cable with the Capri Outer cable, fabricate and add the ends as required by the pedal and clutch release arm.

Photos below show how this was accomplished.

Installed and adjusted the cable and tried it out. It works a treat, Smooth and efficient. It has held up for the first summer and over the summer I added some solder to the clutch end which will go a long way to ensuring it will remain together.

So with a working clutch it was time to tackle the trans hump which was cut open to allow the larger transmission to fit. Here again this is not supposed to be required, but in this case was so we did!

Photos below show how we approached this.

As seen in this photo there was substantial work to be done.

The Easy part was the back half which we shaped with an Eastwood metal stretcher on the 1" lip. Once secured the lip was cut off. Initial installation was with rivits and that was followed up with stitch welds to secure the plate. (Note the as new floors :o)

The harder part was to fabricate the front of the hump. This was done in three pieces and then welded together as seen below.

Once installed it look as follows.

In reply to pres589:

I added info on my profile, Let me know what else you need.