No problem using your mechanical rotating rod throttle linkage with your knee knocker. The dealer (or suppliers like Sears) did not change out the manual throttle setup (too expensive!)
65 was the first year of the factory integrated heater/AC. The limited area available in the early A made the rotating rod assembly occupying some of the space with the AC part of the system. For slant-equipped cars with factory AC, the Solution was to use the less intrusive cable setup for the V8. Additionally the horizontal bulkhead connector opening on the firewall was also a problem trying to occupy real esstate with the factory AC unit. The factory solution was a new firewall for both V8 and slant cars that were coded for the factory AC. Besides the obvious various openings for the AC part, the firewall got a larger heater blower motor opening AND the bulkhead connector opening was changed from horizontal to vertical and moved just a bit to the left from where it was. Now the bulkhead connector and AC unit weren't trying to occupy the same space!
This is what I found when mocking up the factory AC to a regular slant firewall!
The 65/66 factory bolt in throttle cable bracket shows up quite often for sale. The early pedals used with it are now available as a repro. Personally I would rather use the factory cable throttle bracket rather than adapting the later setup.
On the factory cable setup whether for the slant or V8 the oedal is the same, and now available as a repro. Yes, the cable length is different.
