Switching to Manual Steering

The flaw isn't in the structural sense. I'm not sure how one would reinforce if it was needed.
The issue is 3 nuts welded inside. That welding could distort the roundness of the nut and/or flatness of the plate they are welded to. The triangle pattern wasn't the best plan either.
If long bolts went all the way through the K, tubes welded inside ( like lower arm attach ) would be needed. Anyway...
The bolts should go back the same way they came out. If switching the bolts from hole to hole doesn't make a difference, you know there is some distortion in the 1 nut, distorted/stretched threads. ( I will guess that it's the one that stands alone above the lower arm attach point ) If I was sure its not cross threaded, I think I would forge ahead.
To run a tap through that nut would remove some metal, maybe at only 1 or 2 stretched threads which likely wouldn't be enough to cause a failure but we can't know before running a tap through it. I struggle with these type decisions without hands on.