I'm replacing my front strut cartridges....and am running into a problem.

I need to remove the strut shaft nut.  I have the specialty tools needed...but the shaft is all stripped out where the torx bit goes into it (to prevent the shaft from turning, so the big nut will come off.)

I was thinking about taking a dremel w/a cut-off wheel...and make two vertical slices on the nut...basically cutting it off/away from the shaft.  The new cartridges came with this nut...so I dont care about cutting up the old one.  This way I can pry out the stut mount bushing and proceed to remove the cartridge.  

OR  I could cut a slot in the top of the shaft and put a flat-head screwdriver socket on the shaft.  I just need to hold the shaft still so I can remove the nut thats around it.  

For those of you who work on cars for a living and are familiar with GM W-bodies...will this work?
Is there a better way of going about this?  

Thanks.  

BTW:  92' Lumina Euro 3.1

psuedo-taggage....


I have a '93 Z34 (3.4L) ... so far I'm not having that problem, but any knowledge that would apply to my  car is nice to have BEFORE I'm having that problem.  

Oh, and thanks to everyone who answered my other thread....turned out the timing belt did slip, but no damage other than the hit to the wallet

FanoftheBlackRifle, If you're doing your own work, be sure to let bolts soak for a long
while in PB BLASTER before you try to undo them...
How many miles on your 3.4?

I'm @ 127,000 on my 3.1.  I'm going for 150,000, lol.

They make a tool to split nuts like that.  They kinda suck to work with though.  I would cut it off with something.  Buy a small angle grinder for $30 and put it to use.  About a minutes worth of grinding.

I do as much work as I can without having a garage or a 2nd car to rely on.

Just cracked 98k last week.

So far my cars have made it
'87 Chevy Cavalier - 250k, sold to a friend who wrecked it two weeks later
'89 Buick Century - 92k totalled by a dumbassed teenaged girl yapping on a phone instead of driving.
'89 Cavalier Z24 - 238k, blown head gasket was the last straw, cheaper to replace car than fix everything wrong with it.
'93 Lumina Z34.....setill going....I'm hoping to have it past 200k as well.

UPDATE:

I'm not driving a watermelon anymore!

Ended up cutting the bushing w/ a razor and cutting each side of the bolt.  Broke it away, pulled out strut, put in new one...   I used silicone adhesive to glue the bushing back togather, and it works good.
Since it just sits inside a housing to fill up space, I figured glueing it back togather would be fine.

Plus it saved me $40 (cost of new bushing).  

New struts are awesome and the car handles really well now.  I had to use some spacers under  the new strut nuts, otherwise there was play.  But all is good now.