I haven't been impressed with Dougs headers, and that's one of the reasons. It's not much effort to just move a tube here or there and make that stuff work, so why they come this way is puzzling.
I just went through this on my wife's 69 Z with Doug's headers, I ended up moving the #7 header tube and kept the back drive linkage.
My father removed the back drive linkage on his 69 GTO back when he bought it new, first thing he did was headers. Had to remove the linkage for the dinky headers he ran at that time. It hasn't had the back drive on it in almost 50 years now. What's funny though, he has everything in the box, and now almost 50 years later the car has monster 2" hooker super comps with tubes that snake everywhere. I just checked the backdrive linkage on it the other day,,,,,the stuff just drops right in, lol. So it's going back on. Also a 400 turbo with rally shifter.
Just shows that header companies can make this stuff work with a little effort. If Hooker can do it with 2" tubes then Dougs can do it with 1 3/4" :shrug: I run 2" hookers on my BBC chevelle too, and backdrive linkage drops right in.
Anyway, my advice is to do what I did on my wifes Z. Get in there and reroute the tube. Takes a little cutting, welding, maybe some heat and persuasion, and a couple pieces of mandrel tubing bends to fab in place, but it's doable. Or send the Doug's back and use a different brand.
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