Header Clearance Remediation

As mentioned previously, the header on the driver's side had a minor clearance issue with the steering gearbox that needed some attention.  After all, the headers don't tell me what to do, I tell them what to do.  Its the natural order of things around here...  This process is difficult to explain in words other than "hit the header with a hammer until it fits," so I have attempted to capture the play-by-play with lots of pictures:

The driver's side header is on the top and the passenger side is on the bottom.  All off-the-shelf headers are made to fit specific vehicles and these are meant to fit a late 60's mustang.  Custom headers can be made to look and fit however you want, but we don't have the time for that kind of luxury on this project.  :o)  These headers are made out of 14 gauge stainless pipes and 3/8" thick carbon steel engine mounting flanges, which are both thicker than what you would find on "value headers."  I ordered a heavy duty set knowing that they would likely need some encouragement to fit on the vehicle.

This is as far as they would go as-is.  There was minor interference on the top corner of the gearbox and likely would be more as they sat down into where they were supposed to go.

 

I gave the steering gearbox bolt a haircut with the angle grinder and it helped the situation a little.

I marked the lower primary pipe with a sharpie and began the slow process of hammering down a local recess.  The second best way to do this is to use a round or curved object that is harder than the pipe you want to bend and hit that instead of hitting the pipe directly to avoid deep scars and tool marks on the header.  The best way to do this is to not do it and make or buy headers that fit your vehicle.  This is truly an art form that requires intense study to do correctly like Michelangelo or Bernini chiseling their great works into marble.  I used a cheater pipe and a small sledge hammer to get the job done today while listening to the Jimi Hendrix blues album.

 

I started to encourage the header pipes into the right shape on my workbench that is anchored to a load bearing wall of the house, but there was a whole lotta shakin' goin' on, so I move the operation down the concrete floor.  This was an iterative process, so that means I'd hit the header a few times, walk it back over to the engine, check the fit, then take it back over to the hammer and repeat.  The second picture here shows that the clearance issue started to affect the "upper middle" primary pipe on a different part of the steering gearbox.  So it goes.

 

These pictures don't really do the situation justice as it was hard to get the phone way down at the right angle to take the pictures.  The takeaway here is that both the lower primary tube and the upper middle primary tube have approximately 3/8" clearance around the gearbox.  You can see clear daylight all the way around in person...

 

 This picture shows the clearance between the gearbox input shaft and the header pipes.  I might need to source a short extension joint for the steering column so the bushing will clear the upper pipe, or move the pipe out of the way with the hammer.

 The driver's side looks pretty good now!

 I spent about 1.5 hours on the driver's side and ended up with a sore arm and hands from all the hammer work.  The passenger side mocked up in about 90 seconds without issues.

 

 I'm going to think about the steering column interface over a cold beverage in context with the disintegrated ignition switch issue and decide on how to tackle those problems later.  The next step for the headers is high temp paint on the carbon steel flanges and then final installation onto the engine.