A friend bought a set of Sanderson shorties for his 66 Skylark with a 340. I have installed both headers but there is a clearance issue with the shift linkage (column shift) on the driver side. He said these were supposed to work with column cars. Am waiting for Sanderson to open to call them. Anyone else ever install these? Thanks!
What are you hoping to resolve with a phone call? Put that time towards bending the linkage a bit. Looks to me like they do work with column shift...with a bit of a tweak
Wow, that sounds easy! Why didn't I think of that... In all seriousness, as the column arm rotates down to go to 'R' the closer (completely against) the arm gets to the header. There is no way in heck it can get to 'D'. It would require some pretty significant 'bending' to clear.. I spoke with someone at Sanderson and am awaiting a call back. Apparently this is a new design, so the guy who built them is supposed to call.
Sanderson told me they would work with the z bar in my 67 340 car. Not even close! I had to convert to a hydraulic clutch setup. The header tube was directly covering the pivot ball for the z bar .
You can see how the interference will get worse as it travels through the arc and it seems obvious what it will take to make work, that's why I was curious what would be accomplished with the phone call. Way too many products aren't described accurately for fitment, headers often being on the worse end. They wouldn't sell very many if they were completely forthright or it would take too long to amortize R&D costs if they fully explored all vehicle fitment. They probably aren't going to pay you for your engineering or development time to improve their product. I don't mean to seem negative, but from a marketing perspective I see little benefit besides appearance and filling a niche void of obsolescence from their products. From an engineering perspective, there isn't much benefit to these. From having designed things, I've never had to handle a call from a retail customer or end user to justify lack of forethought. I'm just not seeing much solutions coming from a phone call, sorry. Good luck, curious to read how his turns out.
Actually I was not looking for justification of the fitment issue, I was looking for suggestions or solutions if others had incurred the same issue, which is what I rec'd. It wasn't what I wanted to hear but was what I expected.... Go with a cable system or fab up a rod with some bends in it. I am sure I was hoping against hope for a 'quick fix' but rec'd the answer I expected. I am not a mechanic. I am simply trying to help a friend by installing these for him. As usual, no good deed goes unpunished.. The reason for my post here was since this is a Buick site, I thought maybe someone else had a similar experience and could offer some insight.
I respect that viewpoint. Headers are often more of a challenge than people are prepared for. Most don't work that well with column shift. When I see people in a forum enough to be 'well known' I mistakenly assume having dealt with headers and their challenges, so that assumption led to the response I gave. If my comments were way off base, accept my apologies.
It looks like it would work if you had a 300 since that engine is about 1/2" narrower. They may have designed them for a 300 and assumed the 340 was the same.
I think I may have resolved the issue. After removing the rod and making two strategically placed bends (one to get the rod away from the header and the other to correct the angle I changed with the first bend), I seem to have full range of motion of the shifter mechanism. Other than this issue, the Sandersons are a nice fit. Truth be told, I tried to talk the car owner out of headers in the beginning as the car is stock. However, he was dead set on them. Now to get the car to the exhaust shop to have the pipes modified to meet up with the collectors. F85 (I assume you have an Olds? I actually own a 65 442 ), no apologies necessary. I have learned no matter what 'experience' I may have, it never hurts to ask others for input.. Warren..
i put them in my 1966 340. they were great headers really. i called them and they told me just turn the rod around there was no bending. i started a thread [shorty headers] a while back.
I would think that getting a new rod or turn it around may work or fab up something and have it made somewhere. bending it may make it too short to work properly. Fab up something out of a coat hanger or the like and then have one made. maybe use some brake line to fab one up so you can see where you need to make the bends at.
I once tried to bent the clutch pedal-to-z-bar on a 66 GS to make it fit better..... and it snapped in half! Must have been hardened.
they were designed and built using a 340 car as their test model. on a side note the exhaust ports on the heads are larger than the header openings and when I called them out on this they had me send my headers back and they modified them to correct the issue, I wonder if they fixed the problem on all headers after that?
The original Sanderson 340 headers were modeled to fit a 67 GS Ca. Special with an auto trans, and I think Jay was the designer. I know this because he used my car to make the first set for. Sanderson doesn't have any issues with integrity otherwise they would not have modified a returned set of headers. My header ports on my set made for me seemed fine but I don't remember the specifics but i did look... since that was about 8-10 years ago. Possibly the assembler used the wrong flange or had the wrong ports cut into the flange?
