JOIN & Query Problem - unique indexes & PKs, converting FoxPro to MySQL

[Grind Stone]

Our company has live data in a FoxPro 9 source database whose structure and functions cannot be edited - it is part of an application we purchased 15 years ago that will soon no longer be supported.

I am using DB Sync to synchronize tables from the FoxPro DBCs (Windows XP) to MySQL 5.0.92 (Mac Snow Leopard Server) with PHP 5.3.6, to allow more robust reporting with our other systems, including shipping, until we can move everything from the old application to a new PHP/MySQL ERP system.

The FoxPro 9 database does not have Primary Keys (I believe PK indexing is stored in FoxPro CDX files). DB Sync allows me to create Unique Indexes to compensate.

The data sync seems to work just fine.
The problem is trying to create a JOIN for a query. I can JOIN with Unique Indexes (UI), but the UIs that should match, don't match, because one UI has a length of 8 with 3 spaces before the data, and the other UI has a length of 12 with 7 spaces before the data.

I confess that I am at a loss for figuring out which direction to go to make this work.

Any ideas?