A lovely flea market Sunday morning.

Plenty of ratchets to choose from.  I grabbed a long handle, 3/8″ drive by Snap-On.

There was another by Mac, but the drive plug had shattered so only a small jagged chunk of it was left. I wonder how that happened.

Anyway, the Snap-On seemed okay. It’s only issue was a missing shift lever. I could pull over a Snap-On truck and buy one, order one from Snap On, or make one.

I made one.

First I got a length of mild steel rod and pounded it into a square (the hole the original lever fit in was square shaped).

Next I bent it to an “L”, pounded it more till the end was wider (to make it a bit more comfy for my thumb) and filed it smooth.

I cut it to rough length and filed and pounded some more. As I got farther from steel rod salvaged from old filing cabinet and closer to ratchet lever, pounding with a big hammer turned into tapping with a small one.

For a makeshift anvil I used a block of hardened steel I found in a machine shop dumpster.

The original lever was held in with a screw. The hole for the screw was too close in diameter to the hole for the lever itself for me to drill by hand. I know if I tried I’d end up coming partway out the side of the lever instead of just the bottom so I made the base of my lever a bit bigger and just tapped it in with a hammer. It will hold up under use but its not so tight that I wont be able to get it out with a pair of pliers.

Here’s the ratchet and some of the files I used. Grandpas hacksaw is in the background too.