Complications fitting a replacement shower

Hi All,

Our quite elderly electric shower has recently packed up and I decided to see if I could replace it myself (didn't want to call someone out for something totally straight forward), but a few complications have come up and I'm deciding whether to give in and call a professional, whether I just picked a bad shower or whether there are easy fixes I've not thought of.

The manufacturer doesn't sell the exact same shower any more, but I bought the closest one (at the same power rating) in the hope that the fixings and entry points etc would be the same. As it turns out, none of them are the are, and the new shower is also a bit smaller and here begin my issues:

1) The hole in the wall for the electrical cable is quite large, but is almost entirely obscured by the main back plate of the shower. Feeding it through the only place it will fit (with the water connected) means that I would need to cut away a section of the removable part of the back plate. (see picture 1) There's nothing in the instructions to say this isn't allowed, but it doesn't suggest that as a part of the installation, either.

2) With the shower connection shank the length that it is, the shower body is not wide enough to allow the water feed to enter from behind (see picture 2). There MIGHT be enough spare length in the shank to cut it down and still connect the shower, but I can't imagine that I'm supposed to need to do this.

3) Because the entry connections are closer to the side of the shower than on the old unit, the shower doesn't completely cover the holes in the wall (picture 2). These require some sort of seal or cover, but I'm not sure what would be the appropriate method.

In case it's relevant, the old shower looked like picture 3.

So, my questions are - are there any easy fixes to these problems that I've missed? Have I just bought a bad choice of shower (I couldn't find any schematics that would have let me check the fit before ordering it)? If I hire a plumber (which I'm going to do, unless there's anything really easy I've missed) how is he going to fix these things?

Thanks for any advice,
Andy

Replace that elbow with a smaller copper fitting so the whole unit can slide across further to the right.

Thanks. Since that's a £2 experiment I'll give that a go and see if it frees up enough space.