I am trying to adjust the toe on the front end of my 1971 240Z but I am having no luck loosening the jam nuts that keep the tension between the tie rod ends and the steering rack. I have tried penetrating oil and a propane torch. I can't seem to get either side to budge. I'm pretty sure the driver's side has reverse thread and passenger side is normal. Other than that is there anything I am missing that is keeping me from getting this nut loose?

Here is a picture of my problem nut from the passenger side...

You may be turning the jamb nuts the wrong way. Its not hard to become confused when under the car.

The right side has a conventional right hand thread.The left side or your drivers side has a left hand thread.

You may be able to loosen them. Place a heavy block of steel e.g. an axe head or a large hammer behind

the area adjacant to the jamb nut, then give a few good blows with another hammer. Then give the nut a

couple of blows in a similar fashion. Don't hit withought a weight behind the area, as you may do some

damage to the rack.

Edited October 11, 201113 yr by olzed

I have used vise-grips on the body of the threaded cast steel and clamped them so that they rotated up against the cross member when I used my very large long-handled adjustable wrench to loosen the nut. I didn't want to put the torque on the ball joint. They can get pretty tight, even when I just give them a firm tighten, they have always been hard to get loose the next time around (I messed around with toe settings for a while, long enough to prematurely wear out a set of tires - zero is a good number).

You're right, one thread is lefty. You can eye-ball it and tell which one, and which way is off.

My friend has a 15" adjustable that I will try with your vice grip suggestion. Thanks for the input!

Supposedly the home-brew acetone/ATF mixture is the best performing stuff, by far. I once saw some controlled test results comparing various penetrating oils and the home-brew stuff thrown in just for laughs.

You might try whacking the end of a long wrench with a big rubber mallet. You can get quite a lot of torque that way.

McMaster-Carr part number 3843A15.

The 15" wrench and vice grip worked great! Thanks for the nut buster suggestion John. I'll save that for the next one.