First.
Always use a good 6 point socket. 12 point sockets have about 1/4 the contact area and will strip the corners in a heartbeat.
Use a long enough cheater and you can feel the threads let loose or not as you apply torque. Impacts are fine if you know what the fastener can take but with a long cheater you can apply more torque, steadily. Gives better control.Three suggestions. If all else fails 1) Nuts are cheap. If the corners of the nut are stripped but the threads of the stud still look OK ...save the threads: If you can get at it with a sawsall or an angle grinder and a cut off blade, slice that old nut as close to the threads as possible and then tap it off with a cold chistle. Even if you boogger some of the threads you can always chase the threads with a die after it's apart. Or if you can't get to it with the angle grinder, use the cold chistle to fracture and expand the nut enough that it will let loose and back off. Be careful not to bust your casting while beating on the nut. Something else
This works for both nuts and bolts and stripped studs. Weld a good nut to the end of the damaged fastener. The heat from the weld quite often loosens the threads and it will back right out. A bead of weld is a real quick way to get a tapered bearing cup out of a blind bore too. Jack the weld heat up as high as you dare, run a bead around the bearing surface of the damaged bearing and the weld shrinkage and latent heat will drop the cup out quite nicely. John
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