clutch cable

ah just one thing after another in trying to get my car back on the road.. all i have to do now is hook the clutch cable for my 92 2.3 back up but of course it couldnt be that easy. when i pull the cable with the bracket on it to the fork, im falling about an inch and a half short from being able to bolt it together. so ill ask, is there any special trick to this? i mean it was connected and working before, but now i just cant get enough length from the cable, like the cable has too much tension. the clutch pedal was stiff before, but this was a fairly new cable (within two years old) and of course i didnt replace that cable and i fear that maybe they didnt use quite the right one. is that possible that the cable is actually too short? any insight on this would be greatly appreciated.

should i replace the cable and just start over with it? if so what would you all suggest that i use as a replacement?

more issues...

ok so i got the clutch cable connected down at the fork, who knew i needed to wrench the fork forward to lessen the pressure from what i assume was the pressure plate. so scratch that off the list. next up:

next problem arose when i hopped in to start the car, my foot and the pedal went straight to the floor with out any tension on the pedal. after an hour of trying to figure out if the damn clutch cable was connected (im sorta new to clutches ) i found out it was connected and to what i assume is the quadrant? theres 2 different pieces of rounded plastic from what i can see, that have teeth on them. if the quadrant is the piece that the clutch cable wraps around then i have figured that much out. next the pawl which is also a new word to me, is where i seem to be having my problems. my assumption is that the teeth on both the quadrant and pawl are supposed to mesh together to get the motion from the clutch pedal to the clutch cable. here lays the problem...

where the pawl has the spring on it, i see that the teeth are facing somewhat up towards the roof of the car, when they should be facing right at your feet if you were sitting in the seat(?) i got the spring off to try and rotate the pawl, but i havent done anyhting with this before and all of it was working. so i guess something must have shifted out of position when we took the clutch cable off and the tension (or lack of) made it move out of position.

so the real question is here, the teeth should be facing each other, correct? and if they are supposed to be, how or what is the easiest way to get these 2 things lined back up together so that i can ge my damn car running this thing has me at whits end so any help on this one is greatly appreciated.