alright murdoch1.7zs, just posting as i had major problems with my ratchet on my old rs. Basically mine snapped when I was trying to change gear,the car was off the road for a month because i could not get it to work like it should do. tried both clutch cables abs and non abs, got a new ratchet and quadrant from ford, new clutch and gearbox and only then did it get back to a drivable state. but coming home from work it snapped again.
My advice would be to get all genuine parts from ford i.e ratchet, quadrant, clutch cable and get a competent mechanic to fit it or just as safechav says do the mk6 conversion. if u still have problems and u r still on the original clutch get the clutch changed and when the gearbox is out get them to have a good look at the fork. Even the older ford mechanics i had contact with hated doing the clutch ratchet because is one of the most useless,fiddly things on a RS.i sold mine with the ratchet broken because i had really had enough of it. The 1st time mine got fixed it never released the clutch properly, so upon changing gear the clutch slipped all the time, ending up with my clutch being fecked.