Goat Tool Day 21

And of course the granddaddy to all of these is the air ratchet.

But you’ve got to have a compressor, and you’re tied to the air hose. I seen some mechanics say they prefer the battery powered tools since they don’t have to deal with the hose.

My favorite tool is also made by Milwaukee, but not quite as sophisticated, and there’s a story behind how it became part of my tool collection:

Many years ago, a friend gave me a cheap stubby screwdriver with multiple bits as a Christmas gift (he always gives el-cheapo gifts, but they’re usually useful and thoughtful).
It didn’t come in handy all that frequently, but when it did, it was invaluable - there was no other tool that would work - a short, stubby screwdriver is a must for tight spaces.

Anyway, after having it save me several times over a few years, I found myself in a situation that required my handy stubby screwdriver. Unfortunately, after searching everywhere, it was nowhere to be found.

I don’t remember the task, but whatever it was couldn’t be done w/out a stubby screwdriver.

So, I hopped in my car and drove out to Home Depot which, for better or worse, is only a few miles from me.
After searching the shelves exhaustively and then asking a HD employee and following him around as he did exactly what I had just done (thanks for the help!), it was determined that they only had one stubby screwdriver in stock - it was a Milwaukee 8-in-1 Compact Ratchet Multi-Bit Driver, and it was somewhere between $15 - $17 iirc.

I was pissed, because I absolutely needed a stubby screwdriver right away, and the one that had always served me just fine couldn’t have cost more than $4.99.

After sufficiently cursing my circumstance and my victimhood of it, I gritted my teeth and paid the exorbitant sum for the stupid little stubby driver.

Well, despite still believing it was a bit overpriced, it quickly became my most favorite and most handy tool.

The ratchet is solid and durable, unlike the one other ratchet screwdriver I’ve had (another cheap gift from the same guy - regular sized driver w/ tons of bits, including sockets, but the ratchet wore out and failed pretty quickly), the ring to reverse the ratchet is smartly placed right at your fingertips, and the 8 bits included are sufficient for most jobs (I still have the myriad other bits that came with the other ratchet-driver, they fit this one, and I bring them along if I think I’ll need them).

Most importantly, it is comfortable in the palm and, whereas the previous, non-ratchet, cheap stubby would cause my hand to cramp up, the addition of the ratchet makes it so much easier to use. I often use it even when not working in a confined space, because it’s just so much nicer to use than a standard screwdriver.

Anyway, that’s my long, cool story, bro, and I’m sticking to it.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Let’s see if this works:
/image milwaukee 8-in-1 Compact Ratchet Multi-Bit Driver

edit: Yay, it worked!
Also, I forgot to mention that a couple of years after buying this one, I did stumble across the old, cheap stubby (of course) - it now lives in my car, where it has yet to be necessary.

Wonder if this would have helped last week when I did my brakes. The caliper bolt was almost impossible to loosen. Took some carefully placed swings of a hammer on my wrench to finally break it free. Of course it was on the driver’s side where I had to awkwardly swing upward to turn it the right direction.

Another fun trick to get into places that are tough to work is to get an L-shaped Allen wrench that is the same size as your hex-head driver and use a stubby coupler.

It doesn’t ratchet, but it gives you a lever to apply torque. Apply cheater bars at your own peril.

Hold my beer.
I once split the head of a 1/2" Craftsman ratchet (before they became ) trying to bust a wheel nut and using a 4-foot cheater bar and jumping on it with 150 lbs of pure idiocy. The resulting 7,200 ft-lbs of torque was apparently just a wee bit more than she could take, Captain.

I walked into a Sears and they replaced it for free, no hassle. Almost thought I was in a Costco for a minute.

And unlike JASCO, some companies honor their warranties. The Sears guys put it up on display just so people would ask “WTF happened to this thing? Holy !” Shame the Craftsman name is just a label they slap on stuff these days. Although I hear their good stuff is under a “Professional” grade now. That might not even be around any more too.

I’ve got a wrist-powered version.

Yeah, it’s gimmicky. But it’s actually come in handy more than once just for quickly spinning a bolt/nut down when you have very little room or where you have very little arc.