Doug, Amen to that! I know what you mean by needing to have the truck to move & do stuff! My was down last year for over 8 months with the rear diff messed up. Yeah, I found out just how manny things can be hauled on the roof of a Corrola if your desperate!
My 63 is an original cruise o (for the moment; t-5 coming soon!) & I belive the kickdown is the same. I am not familiar enough with the passenger cars to know if the linkage is any different than what you are trying to adapt, but I do know that their were some different linkage combo's that they used on big cab over type trucks that might be a possibility for the firewall issues you have.
I have the 1" 4 hole as well. I notched out part of the divider on the secondary side though for a pinch more top end.
Kevin