Borgeson Steering Box mount on K-Frame fail, what to do now?

[Beekeeper]

The original steering box mounting bolts on my 69’ bee didn’t have a shoulder at all

 

[1 Wild R/T]

The steering box is held on by a bolts that have shoulders on them so that the 1/2” bolt centers itself up in the 5/8” hole. It also shouldered so that the steering box doesn’t move when it’s under stress.

I don't recall ever seeing any shoulders on any Mopar steering box boxes....

 

[Beekeeper]

Also if you look closely the first couple of threads on the bolts are thread cutters or chasers

 

[MCODECUDA]

I don't recall ever seeing any shoulders on any Mopar steering box boxes....View attachment 932716

Sorry, I must have been thinking about the K-frame bolts.

 

[Beekeeper]

Sorry, I must have been thinking about the K-frame bolts.

yes the K member bolts do exactly as you described

 

[MoparGuy68]

Tried to mount the Borgeson Steering Box yet again, today.. I finally managed to get f-ing box mounted to the K-Frame with the three bolts!!!!!!

To make a long story short, I discovered that last weekend, I was starting to cross thread that single mounting bolt along side the inner fender. That is why I did not force it in last weekend. When lying under the car it is tough to gauge the vertical angle of entry of that bolt in particular. My second attempt today, got it threaded at the correct angle, then I was able to screw it all the way in by hand. So I did not have to enlarge any of the mounting holes on the gearbox.

I had to install a 1/16" thick shim with a U opening behind that mounting ear on the inner fender side. Got all three bolts screwed down in place with lock washers. Just to where they were beginning to fit snug. Stuck the Bergman coupler on the input shaft to test fit. I thought, well, I'm on my way to actually making progress with this monumental task..

Hmm, I thought, I should probably move the exhaust header into place and mount it on my studs for test fitting. Next came what I consider to be the most EPIC FAIL of this whole gearbox fiasco...

The f-ing lead header pipe WILL NOT clear the Borgeson Steering Box!! It is impossible for me to bolt my header to the engine head, with the Borgeson box bolted to the K-Frame. The lead header pipe and that damn steering box are trying to occupy the same physical space. The same header pipe that actually clears the BIG, HUGE, BULKY stock gearbox, will NOT clear the smaller and lighter Borgeson box. There was a dent put in the lead pipe to make it clear the stock gearbox. Even with the dent, there is no f-ing way it is going to clear the Borgeson box. I'd have to dent the pipe so deeply I'd be blocking off more than 50% of the pipe airflow, maybe even as much as 80%!! I'd have to mangle the pipe instead of the small dent that's in it now. Un-F-ing Believable!!!

I stared at the header and the box, and thought is this really happening or am I having some kind of a terrible nightmare... Maybe this is a just a bad dream.. And I didn't really buy this Borgeson box.. The laughable thing is I foolishly thought the smaller Borgeson box would give me MORE header clearance than I had with the stock box. Absolutely not..

So I have one of three choices to now make:

1) Have my stock gearbox rebuilt, and try to return the Borgeson box and everything I bought with it.

2) Buy a new set of Headers that have a driver side lead pipe that comes NOWHERE near the Borgeson gearbox. So it is as far away from that damn thing as possible. A lead pipe that goes straight back and doesn't angle downward at all.

3) **** the headers, and put the stock High Performance Exhaust Manifolds on the heads that were included with the extra parts when I bought the car.

Option 2 & 3 will require having a muffler shop fabricate and install new pipes from headers or manifolds back to the mufflers. I'll be updating my Borgeson install thread in the Bergman vendor section with the latest photos from the day.

 

[Kern Dog]

What brand of headers do you have?

 

[MoparGuy68]

What brand of headers do you have?

I don't know what brand they are.. They are long tube style with 3.5" diameter collectors. They were on the car when I bought it. The seller didn't know the brand either, but he and two other people that looked at them said they were made of good quality steel, not junk. If I post photos of them, maybe someone could identify the brand.

They sound bad ***, I know that. They are old and have surface rust all over them. I was hoping I could use them and not have to put a new exhaust system in the car. The pipes, mufflers and machine gun tips, from the collectors back are newer than the headers. That part of the exhaust system doesn't need replacing.

 

[Kern Dog]

Even cheap brand headers can sound pretty good.
Hooker and Doug's often have a metal plate welded to one of the pipes for identification. TTI doesn't. I don't know about Hedman.
I have not heard of a header hitting the Borgeson unit until now. not knowing the brand may make it hard to get help especially without a picture of the header. It is a strange problem as you stated, the smaller steering box should give more clearance, not less.

 

[MoparGuy68]

Even cheap brand headers can sound pretty good.
Hooker and Doug's often have a metal plate welded to one of the pipes for identification. TTI doesn't. I don't know about Hedman.
I have not heard of a header hitting the Borgeson unit until now. not knowing the brand may make it hard to get help especially without a picture of the header. It is a strange problem as you stated, the smaller steering box should give more clearance, not less.

I will take pictures of both headers, driver and passenger side tomorrow morning. They are both out of the car now. Yes, I was shocked to find they would not clear the Borgeson box.

 

[hunt2elk]

I agree with KD. It is very odd that a header which clears a stock sector won't clear a Borgeson. That shim you mentioned putting in isn't compounding the problem? Although at just 1/16", I doubt it would.

 

[Billccm]

I vote option 3.

 

[MoparGuy68]

I vote option 3.

I am leaning toward option 3, the HP Exhaust Manifolds. I made a post about it in your old thread on the subject. I asked you a few questions there about it: https://www.forbbodiesonly.com/moparforum/threads/exhaust-manifold-gasket-job-3838.138786/

 

[MoparGuy68]

These are the unidentified headers that were on my car and will not clear the Borgeson box. I measured them with a calipers. Tube diameter is 1 7/8". Collector diameter is 3.5" There are no brand identifying marks on them that I could find.. The passenger side one, near the collector, is especially stained with coolant and ATF fluid which dripped on it during this project a few weeks ago.

You can see the dent that was put in the lead tube to clear the stock box. Along with fresh scrape marks near the dent where it rubbed against the borgeson box, during my failed attempts to mount it to the engine head.

 

[Kern Dog]

Those do not look like any header that I have ever seen.
Judging by the condition, maybe a manufacturer that went out of business at least 15 years ago ?
Regardless....
The manifolds will be a step backwards in performance. You can usually count on a 18-20 HP difference on a stock 383-440. With a bigger cam or better flowing heads, the difference grows exponentially.
At least they will clear, right?

 

[MoparGuy68]

Yeah they do have a Mad Max like appearance to them.. The 383 has a bigger than stock cam in it. Supposed to be Flow Master mufflers on the car. Especially with the windows rolled down the car sounded very bad *** with these mystery headers. I had a higher lift cam and headers (shorter length, not long tube) in my small block 71 Challenger years ago, and it did not sound as menacing as this Super Bee did. But the exhaust manifolds clear the box, and these do not..

 

[MoparGuy68]

With that said, the car in this video running the stock HP manifolds, doesn't sound too bad to me. An extra 18 to 20 HP won't make any difference against the modern Challengers and Chargers, they would still clean my car's clock in any kind of race.

 

[myk r sanchez]

I wonder if this is the first example of headers not clearing the smaller box? Is the borgeson box...shaped differently than the stock box? Maybe I'll just chicken out and grab the firm feel box instead lol...

 

[Kern Dog]

Common sense tells me that a crushed header tube would reduce power. If a tube is squeezed at some point to 50% of it's size, I would expect a drop in power. Imagine my surprise when the guys with Roadkill made a video where they had an engine on a dyno and tested the output with headers before and after bashing several tubes. The power losses were not that much, far less than I expected.
************************************************************
I found the video:

 

[70chall440]

Those dents would not amount to much loss, none that you would feel. I thought the Borgeson box was smaller? Many times on a BB car, the engine needs to be lifted slightly to get the headers up into the engine compartment and close to the head, then the engine slowly lowered to get the headers on, especially with generic headers.