I have two almost 50 year old Craftsman ratchets of which I'm the original owner: VV-44975 (10-1/4" OAL 1/2" drive) and VV-43785 (6-7/8 OAL 3/8" drive). The former has the oil port, the latter does not nor does it have any indication of a hidden one being chromed over.
These ratchets were purchased together as part of a new Craftsmans SAE and Metric mechanic's toolbox set (socket sets, combination wrenches, midget wrenches, hacksaw, feeler gages, gray metal tooplbox w/removable red tray, etc.) which I purchased in 1979 (or possibly late autumn 1978?) to work on my first dirt bike - 1979 Yamaha IT175 - which is the first thing I bought after saving up money from my first fast food job.
Till now I've never serviced these as they've performed fine, but the 1/2" has become hard to turn so I researched disassembly and lube ... which pulled up this thread amongst others. I never noticed the oiler port/ball bearing before (or had noticed it but passed over). I plan to disassemble, clean, and lube the ratcheting assemblies of both ratchets soon when I have the time but for now I just depressed the ball on the 1/2" ratchet and applied a few drops of 3-in-1 oil then spun the ratchet for a minute which smoothed things out considerably. I'm sure cleaning and fresh grease will bring them back to full glory.
