Repairing a Craftsman 1/2 inch drive ratchet

[RJSakowski]

I have a 3/8" fine toothed Craftsman ratchet that had the annoying habit of dropping sockets. Your post egged me to have a close look at my ratchet. Unlike your ratchet, when I removed the snap ring everything was accessible.

In order to access the retention mechanism, I had to remove the two pawls. I did this by pulling the pivot pins. Once the pawls were removed, I was able to drop one of the .125" balls out and remove the small compression spring, allowing the remaining ball to be pushed into the release button so that the release button could be removed, The ratchet has a short spring in the bottom of the hole with a .137" ball on top of that and the ball just fell out. The ball was worn which is why I couldn't hold a socket on the wrench. I happened to have a .137" ball salvaged from an old ball bearing.

I reinstalled the two pawls. To facilitate loading the .125" balls and spring. I turned a small collar to .430" o.d. and bored a .317" hole .6" deep. Then I drilled a .143" side hole to load the balls and spring into the release button and parted the jig off at .6". I placed the release button into my jig and aligned the cross hole in the button with the hole in my jig and dropped one ball in, followed by the spring. Then I pushed the second ball into the hole and rotated the jig slightly to trap the ball. Next I inserted the assembly into the ratchet and pushed the button down into position. All that remained was to reassemble thew ratchet. I am pleased to say that it now functions like new.

Thanks for the inspiration!

P.S. Normally, springs are my nemesis. They tend to fly about like they're possesed by demons. In this case, it was the balls. I managed to lose both of the .125" balls and one .137" ball. Fortunately I had measured their diameter before they decided to wander and I had replacements. Sometimes you just live right.

 

[matthewsx]

Problem with Craftsman replacement policy is it has to be the exact same model number. Doesn’t matter if it’s the same exact tool, if the numbers don’t match what’s in stock they won’t honor the replacement policy. At least at my local a
Ace Hardware that’s the deal. Not impressed with their quality these days, old stuff was decent not so much now.

John

 

[cathead]

Thanks for the inspiration!

P.S. Normally, springs are my nemesis. They tend to fly about like they're possesed by demons. In this case, it was the balls. I managed to lose both of the .125" balls and one .137" ball. Fortunately I had measured their diameter before they decided to wander and I had replacements. Sometimes you just live right.

RJ,

Thanks for sharing your story. I'm glad you were able to make use of my posts and return another ratchet wrench to functionality.
I know what you mean about springs! I'm very careful where I work with small springs and balls and pick a place where one has a better
chance of finding them. That would be a small uncluttered and well lit room. A bathroom works as long as the toilet seat is down.



I save ball bearings of as many sizes as I can from old ball bearing races mostly. I also have a large collection of
bearings that I can break open if need be. It wasn't long ago that I needed some specific sized balls to repair a tool box
drawer that had become misaligned and the balls were mostly gone. I was able to measure the ball size and crack
open a ball bearing race to extract the balls. I remember when I bought the cabinet with tools I might add on a Sunday
at a flea market. It was the end of the sale and the fellow didn't want to lug it home again. It was full of chisels , knives,
and mechanic tools that I still use it every day. I find it difficult to spend a lot of money on a tool box because you can't
fix anything with a tool box. Consequently I do not have one of those grand rolling tool carts but I do have tools for most
any job. I do have a large deep rack panel electronics cabinet though on wheels that would be a good candidate for a tool
cart so maybe I can find time to remodel it to my needs.