Trying to get my driveshaft out of my 77' 280z and the 4 12mm bolts that connect the driveshaft to the diff are impossible to get to and the nuts are starting to round off on the ones ive attempted.

The nuts are facing toward the diff, is this supposed to be right? It seems it would be a hell of alot easier if they faced the trans side and I could use an impact wrench on it.

Otherwise I dont have enough room to move my wrench and cannot even fit a socket on it because of the limited space.

Help me please.

I feel your pain. Support the diff with a jack and remove the front diff cross member. One 14 mm nut in the center (diff insulator), then four 14 mm bolts that hold the crossmember to the car. The suspension/control arms that it traps will be fine. Hopefully the exhaust lets you have room to wiggle the x-member out. Then it gets easy (er) to get to those drive shaft bolts.

The drive shaft bolts have a flat spot on the head that sit in the driveshaft side of the ujoint body, that prevents them turning and must in inserted as you see them, ie nuts to the rear. Good luck.

If on the other hand, you are doing this as part of a engine/trans removal, just leave the drive shaft in place and pull the trans/engine out. It will slip right off. I started doing it that way after I got sick of fighting with these drive shaft bolts too.... I just guide the DS back in to the trans as I put the engine/trans back in too. Not that hard.

Edited July 19, 201212 yr by zKars

With the right wrenches, you can do it very easily, but with the wrong wrench and/or an aftermarket stabilizer bar, it won't work. I use a Snap-On double box 12/14 wrench and I can have the driveshaft off in less than 2 minutes. If you remove the bolts and drop the stabilizer bar at the pivots, you will have plenty of space, but that is not needed with the right wrench.

Get the box end on the nut firmly, find a spot on the body to lodge it, then stick a big screwdriver in the u-joint and turn the drivehshaft to loosen the nut. The key is to get the wrench firmly placed on the nut so that it won't slip off.