Hey Chip,  I put the clevis end in a vise and used a small pipe wrench on the rod and worked it back and forth after putting the heat to it and that worked pretty well.  The vise-grips would just slip. 

With pictures, this would make a great newsletter or magazine article.

Next installment of the headlight saga. I used a punch to gently drive out the plastic bushing which opened up the threaded hole from the inside.  This end of the hole was filled with PB and let set for a couple hours.  I applied heat with a torch until the clevis was red and started with the wrench.  The pipe wrench worked like a charm to give an unslipping grip and the rod started turning out but broke  in the process.  The stub end of the rod was about 1/4 inch down in the clevis but I was able to drill it out and retap the threads with a 5/16-18 tap which I had on hand and managed to salvage the part. 

Acuator is in and working perfectly.  Now that I have an idea what I'm doing, Ill tackle the other side this weekend.  The drivers side is working fine but going to replace the acutator anyway, don't want a bright shiny one on the passengers side and the other one looking yucky (technical term).  Thanks for all the help folks, that's what makes this forum stand out from the rest.