I seperated my steering shaft and legthened it 3/4" then welded it up solid. I had to make small relief cut to allow the up coller to slide further up the column shaft during reinstall and I had to and longate the hole in the long shaft in the column.

It slipped on pefectly and now very easily clears the primary and rests perfectly centered between the two primary pipes. There is about 5/16" on both sides to allow for engine torque plus I can adjust it as required to one side or the other.

I also loosened the 3 firewall bolts that secure the steering colum and longated the one round hole and shifted the column for more clearance.

This problem is now resolved forever.

I will post photos as soon as I can.

 

you could have put in new motor mounts i belive thats the orignial problem you had lol

 

that sounds better than the way i fixed mine, i ended using a bicycle seat post and a hammer to put a dent in my brand new 500 dollar jet hots!!

 

I still have not been convinced that motor mounts would have fixed this.
I assume that a worn mount will cause the motor to drop, this would actually help the problem.
A new mount will would cause the engine to sit a tad higher assuming the old ones were damaged.

The problem I had is the pipe was sitting directly on top of the shaft so I dont need the engine to rise any.

The problem is bad engineering on the part of the header makers IMHO.

Myabe new motor mounts will cause the motor to sit lower.
Is my thinking wrong regarding the motor mounts.

 

Sounds like a hefty fix.. just as irritating as when I had to take the passenger header out again in order to heat and bend the EGR tube so it would clear the trans. dipstick.

 

what brand were they? i would have done the motor mounts and if that did not fix the problem its a bad engineering like you say and i'd tell them to shove em

 

why not bend the dipstick with a brake line bender to curve it?

 

I didn't have a brake line bender in my arsenal of tools, but I did have a propane torch and a rod iron bar which did the trick. It just took some extra time and a new header gasket.

 

I had the exact same problem with my pacesetters. I decided i didn't need EGR after that and got the hacksaw out, cut the flange off the pipe, crimped it shut with some pliers and had the seem welded.

 

I had this same problem when I installed a set of TPIS headers. #3 cylinder's primary just barely touched the steering shaft. Very little grinding on the steering shaft at just the "touch areas" fixed the problem. Much better solution than denting a new header.

-Mindgame