Frankenratchet 2.0

[shoggoth80]

Frankenratchet is dead. Long live the new Franken!
Anyway...after about 3.5yrs of daily use and abuse, one of my cheaper ratchets died. Stripped pawl. It was a Kobalt flex head. Never really liked the flex point after about 2 jobs. The head was modified, and I used a metric bolt to apply joint tension.

Surprisingly, with as shoddy as it looked, Lowes warranty exchanged it without issue. Since the direct replacement, and the Roto were the same price, the clerk let me swap for a Roto. Like them much more. I wanted a little extra length and leverage, so I gutted a junk driver from one of my drawers at work, drilled it out, and slammed it on with a hammer. Not quite as frankensteined as the last one. But it has a legacy to live up to. Lol.

My employer is supposed to issue any tools needed...but yeah.. No. They don't. I'm not willing to risk someone liberating my more prized ratchets, so I have less expensive ones that I keep at work. They get whooped on pretty hard.

 

[cheechi]

I followed the adventures of the original Frank. My version is still going but gets used a lot less than yours. Got to say though I have always liked the Kobalt roto rats since about 06 or so maybe a little later. Once the second gen ones came out, the first ones I bought were all warranted for the newer ones back around that time. Must have been something going around.

Anyway I like the idea. Not sure I'm going to copy that one like last time though. They did have longer handled rotos at one point, or maybe that is the long handled one you got now.

 

[Vortaku]

can i get a link to the original franken?

 

[shoggoth80]

The handle is a little longer on the Kobalt roto to start with. The added acetate gives it a little more. Also less likely to wander off if it looks funky. Lol.

I may have my timelines mixed up. My original thread says two years, but I've been with the shop for 3, and have been working in the automotive field for a little before that. Either way, moral of the story...**** breaks with hard use...and daily fleet work hammers the **** outta stuff. Lol.
http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=316055

 

[popparoach]

loved this thread the first time...
http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=96359

 

[shoggoth80]

Yeah, there's some nice ones in there. If I had a better acetate handle, I would have used it. Lol. No lathe, so couldn't machine anything. Still a fun thread to look through for ideas.

 

[shoggoth80]

As a side note: some of the cheap stuff is holding up well in s pro environment. Some not as much. Got a cheap 1/4" that is still going strong. The last Kobalt ran 3ish years non stop. How long would that last in a weekender's box? Probably a lot longer.

 

[gungatim]

nice. I went back to the original threads and can't believe I never posted mine.

handle is from a snap-on 1/4" drive handle for a pin lock 1/4" drive that was frozen and useless. the actual ratchet is the hard top removal tool from my vette. snap-on made them for GM but the drive has no ball detent, and instead is fully drilled and has a torx socket pinned on the drive permanently with a roll pin (thus no ball detent).

pulled the pin holding the socket, swapped a regular drive head from another snap-on ratchet (Snappy then graciously replaced it for free since the "ball" was missing) and made this custom, one of a kind snap-on hard handled franken-ratchet.