Ratchet drive upgrades

[Andres26tnt]

With the new SK DT upgrades which i own and love, i wondered if you could do the same to other ratchets? Share you knowledge and show us.

 

[AceofSpad3s]

I can't think of anyone that's done something like that.

 

[Tallpilot]

Other than putting Matco 88 rebuild kits in 84 tooth Gearwrench ratchets I am not aware of any factory produced upgrade kits. Which is too bad. There are lots of old handles out there that are perfectly serviceable and perhaps even better forged than current offerings. Being able to upgrade them to today's mechanisms would be awesome besides making Ebay prices get even more stupid.

 

[cjarvis]

It would be awesome if they would. I'd love to upgrade my Snap On S831 from 36t to 80t without having to buy a whole new ratchet.

I don't think there's a chance in hell they will though. There wouldn't be enough profit in it for the mfg's and retailers, if I were to guess.

 

[davethorik]

Some older Wright round-head ratchets have a single pawl, and their current twin pawl rebuild kits will do the same as the SK DT.

 

[Andres26tnt]

Some older Wright round-head ratchets have a single pawl, and their current twin pawl rebuild kits will do the same as the SK DT.

really do you have the part number or ratchets this can work on?

 

[Andres26tnt]

SK open and interesting idea, imagine if a company starts making upgrade kits for popular older ratchets.

 

[AceofSpad3s]

SK open and interesting idea, imagine if a company starts making upgrade kits for popular older ratchets.

I think SK is really the only company that can actually make money off the idea
They've been making the same ratchet for what, nearly 80 years without any real changes to the design. I've run into more of them at sales than anything else (sans maybe RP's, but I don't buy those) the sheer amount of them and virtually no change in the design lends well to something like these drop ins.

The only other design as old as the round heads and still fairly common are the plomb/proto pear heads. Even if you double the tooth count on one of those it still is pretty eh compared to 40x2 on a DT80, plus I imagine it would take a lot more engineering to retrofit those as opposed to the drop in mechanism the SK has.

I do think sears could pull it off if the chinese RP's were the same internally as the US ones. I hear they aren't parts interchangeable, if they were I think they really could make some money selling a 72 tooth kit for them (though I hate those damn ratchets).