Caught myself using a cheater bar on a 1/2 inch drive ratchet for years

I was trying to break loose a stuck bolt on a 2004 F-150 frame rail last Tuesday. Hit it with my usual breaker bar and impact socket, no luck. Grabbed a 3 foot pipe to slip over my ratchet handle like I always did. Then I heard this tiny crack and realized the ratchet head was flexing. My boss walked over and just said 'that's why we own a 3/4 drive set, kid.' I had been stressing those gears for maybe 3 years without thinking. Anyone else ignore the right tool because you got by with a hack?

3 comments

3 Comments

skyler_jackson2713d ago

Read a write up on this exact thing in a mechanics forum a few months back. Apparently the guys who designed those ratchets say the handle is meant to take a certain amount of torque before the internal pawls just give out. Pushing a 1/2 inch drive past its limit with a cheater pipe is basically asking for a face full of metal shards. You got lucky it was just a crack and not a full blowout.

karenh5612d agoMost Upvoted

My cousin used to build custom toolboxes and he swore by never using cheater pipes on 1/2 inch drives. He said the engineers at Proto actually told him the handle is the weakest link on purpose, so it bends before the drive square or pawls snap off. Kinda crazy that a lot of tool companies design them that way as a safety thing. Always figured it was just cost cutting.

jason_lewis313d agoMost Upvoted

@skyler_jackson27 you're close on the failure point but it's usually the gear teeth stripping out before the pawls actually give. The pawls are hardened steel and pretty tough, the gear itself is where the crack propagates from. I've had a Snap-on 1/2 inch crack the same way and the warranty guy told me the handle bends before the internal parts let go. You're dead right about the shrapnel though, had a buddy's cheap Harbor Freight ratchet explode on him and those little metal bits stick in your arms like porcupine quills.