Hey everyone,
My venerable Craftsman 1/4" ratchet started skipping teeth recently, and with rebuild kits going for $20 on ebay, I figured it might be time to upgrade to a fine tooth unit since I'm usually in a tight space if I'm reaching for 1/4".
I've been curious about the Icon line, and have had a Pittsburgh Pro 3/8" flex head that has done me well for several years (it got floppy but works fine), so I picked up an Icon 1/4" fixed head ratchet. It's a nice ratchet, except holy moly it had a lot of backdrag. Enough that it was giving me some grief on some smaller fasteners, so I decided to see if I couldn't 'smooth it out' a little.
I chucked a 1/4 nut driver backwards in my drill, then used my Craftsman thumbwheel deal that has hex on one side and square on the other as an adapter to the ratchet, and then spun that sucker on high speed in 20 second bursts for both directions. I probably did that 4-5 times, letting the ratchet cool down each time, and I'm pleased to report the backdrag was significantly reduced! I had to revisit the same fasteners that were giving me trouble before, and I had no issues.
Anyway, thought I'd share my fix with you guys in case there's someone else out there with a ratchet that needs a little electric finesse.
My venerable Craftsman 1/4" ratchet started skipping teeth recently, and with rebuild kits going for $20 on ebay, I figured it might be time to upgrade to a fine tooth unit since I'm usually in a tight space if I'm reaching for 1/4".
I've been curious about the Icon line, and have had a Pittsburgh Pro 3/8" flex head that has done me well for several years (it got floppy but works fine), so I picked up an Icon 1/4" fixed head ratchet. It's a nice ratchet, except holy moly it had a lot of backdrag. Enough that it was giving me some grief on some smaller fasteners, so I decided to see if I couldn't 'smooth it out' a little.
I chucked a 1/4 nut driver backwards in my drill, then used my Craftsman thumbwheel deal that has hex on one side and square on the other as an adapter to the ratchet, and then spun that sucker on high speed in 20 second bursts for both directions. I probably did that 4-5 times, letting the ratchet cool down each time, and I'm pleased to report the backdrag was significantly reduced! I had to revisit the same fasteners that were giving me trouble before, and I had no issues.
Anyway, thought I'd share my fix with you guys in case there's someone else out there with a ratchet that needs a little electric finesse.
