Folks Of Interest SANDERSON HEADERS are junk, who else had problems?

They had a bad run and the substandard products passed quality control for some reason. Everybody I know who had problems had money refunded or parts exchanged. Personally, I would never buy headers from them on the athletics alone, but just me.

 

Just about the same thing has happened to the lakesters I ordered for a friend´s 30 Chevy coupe. They were like 900 Euros at my door if i remember correctly. He did have a flexible exhaust system so there was no or not much load on the headers. The coating cracked after the first test run.
We were told the engine was running lean .No way.
Anyway the headers we built on our own to replace the Sandersons are still on the car, no cracks or dicoloring within the last 5 years of operation.

 

I realize this is a very old thread brought back to life, but had to throw my 2 cents in. I've been dealing with Sanderson for a very long time and we have bought a few sets of headers from them, both Limefires and Jaysters. We could not be happier with the product or service we received each and every time. They bolt on right out of the box and fit perfectly. (We bought a set of Patriots and had to oblong every mounting hole to make them line up with the head mounting bolts)

The Limefires on my 27 are over 20 years old and when I redid the car a little over a year ago I decided to have Sanderson recoat them simply for cosmetic reasons. Structurally they were like new but from driving in the rain for years there was some slight rust in the seams. Not only did they come back looking like new but Sanderson didn't charge me for the coating and even paid the shipping cost to get them back to me !

Any time I have talked to Nick out there he has been extremely accomodating and professional, even when we had some rush job that needed to get out the door as fast as possible.

Here are the 20+ year old headers when I got them back.




Don

 

So today I cut the collectors off my friends Sanderson block hugger headers he's had on his 55 chevy for years, And always had an exhaust leak. The welding on the cap were the 4 pipes merged was the most amateur shit ass welding I've seen in a long time. Bird shit welding that actually had quite a few holidays that you could shine a light through. I took picture's of the one I did today and will cut the other apart tomorrow. It was so bad I did a search on knockoff Sanderson headers but came up empty.

 

The Sanderson headers on my current RPU have been there 21 years. Not one problem. You won't catch me badmouthing Sanderson.

 

In this pic, It doesn't look like the weld itself has cracked but the material right next to the weld has gave away...

 

Lumpy, that's a problem with having employees, a company's reputation is only as good as that person on a given day. Perhaps they should pressure check the headers before shipment.

 

Actually I'm surprised that there aren't more weld failures on semi-mass produced headers. I worked for Hedman for years and have been building custom headers since I was 18. When I started out, stick welding the flanges and gas welding the tubes and collectors was the norm. When MIG welding became the standard method of assembling headers it was hard to find welders who could weld the 16-18 ga tubing properly around each joint in the various positions. Real mass produced items are welded robotically but places like Sanderson still rely on the craftmanship of relatively low paid employees. Often the weld looks ok but didn't penetrate evenly on both sides of the joint. I see it still, a tiny consistent bead that's just sitting on top of the metal. Add in heat, stress and vibration and they separate from one side or the other. A half an inch of improper weld will propagate over time to become what you see on the OP's headers. His crappy repair technique wasn't any better.
Header companies face a daunting task. Warehousers and dealers don't want to stock a zillion part numbers so header companies have to design each header P/N to fit as many applications as they can. End users want them to fit (of course) so the designs must incorporate as much clearance as they possibly can around all of the obstacles. Primary pipes start out as 20' lengths of tubing, the cutting, bending and end forming all take tooling that wears with use, a slight slip in a single bend in a single pipe may mean it won't fit into the assembly fixture and must be discarded. And then the assembly line welder has to properly weld every joint. It's not cost effective to grind and reweld a bad MIG weld. Some companies (like Hedman, when I was there) fit check every header on the appropriate bare head casting equipped with studs to verify the flange bolt pattern fits the head.
Once in the customer's hands, all kinds of abuse can commence; cramming and prying can deform the header flange, cold hammering flat spots can deform a tube to the point of bending the flange, no paint or coating will allow the metal (oxidized from welding and exhaust heat) to rapidly rust, wrapping the headers takes away the natural air cooling, holds in the heat and allows the headers to overheat and burn up, and hanging a 50 lb Flowmaster muffler off of the collector unsupported will eventually pull the header apart. Conversely, a beautiful stainless exhaust system with little to no compliance will also break up a header over time. So you see, even manufacturers with lenient warrantee standards have a lot to consider before shipping out a brand new set of headers to someone. Requiring the return of the old headers is a good way to keep both parties (mostly) honest, emailed photos and shipper's tracking numbers could help expedite a warrantee process but then, I'm not in the game anymore and they are. Often, years of dealing with the public's BS will harden even the most congenial individual.
Admittedly, the price of headers has risen to a level where expectations are, and should be high but for the small companies it's still a low tech industry where things can fall prey to human error. That's no excuse for poor customer service though.

 

Only had one set , a pair of block huggers for sbc. Raw metal , never leaked but a miserable pain to install or remove. Some regular bolts some modifications and Allen head bolts. The worst part was the expense, US exchange,duties , brokerage and shipping , almost doubled the cost.

 

It’s easy to complain about someone else’s welding (it’s not easy welding metal that thin and get good penetration) I’ve modified a few bike headers and expansion chambers. Just looking at the “repairs “ and the bird shit applied well I can see why he needed to buy headers. considering the cost of Sanderson’s products it’s a shame if the don’t have good customer service ( never had reason to complain as all the headers I ever came across need some kind of modifications to fit)