[Healeys] Steering issues

[Simon Lachlan]

My car is a 3000, MkII BT7.
I have the car on blocks, nose up, wheels on or off, grille out - everything
accessible.
So, the front wheels do not appear to be anything like parallel. I know that
the car is hardly in the right posture for this to be properly tested, but
I'd like to acquaint myself with the dos and donts in this area before I get
in too much of a panic.
I don't find any of my manuals to be very helpful. Adjustment appears to be
done via the cross-tube after loosening the lock nuts which are RHT & LHT at
either end. OK so far? I take the cross tube to be the only large bar/rod
which connects the two steering area (other than the anti roll bar of
course). I've tried loosening off the nuts at either end of this bar with no
luck at all. I've not applied too much torque as it seems to be an area
where things could bend! The nuts don't appear to be separate from the rod;
they appear to be part of it, unless they're very neatly finished off. Am I
missing the point here?
It all seems so tight and generally immovable that I don't see how it can be
done...hence the feeling that I'm trying too hard to do the wrong thing.
Any suggestions? I'm not convinced that I want to do the final adjustments
myself, not having the correct equipment, but I'd like to a) understand the
issues and b) have it ready/loose enough for the local tyre and wheel place
to be able to get near it....
Simon