Junkyard axle swap debate: old timer said to skip the breaker bar, I learned the hard way

So this guy at the U-Pull-It near Portland told me to just use a long pipe on my ratchet for the lower control arm bolts, said a breaker bar was a waste of money. I figured he knew his stuff, he had grease under his nails and everything. Two hours later I snapped my 3/8ths Craftsman and ended up buying a $40 breaker bar from AutoZone anyway. Did his advice work for anyone else, or did I just get bad luck with a cheap ratchet?

2 comments

2 Comments

holly89817h agoMost Upvoted

Nah that old timer was full of it. 3/8ths ratchets just ain't made for that kind of torque no matter how long the pipe is. You basically made a cheater bar out of something that wasn't built for it.

the_beth5h ago

Funny you mention cheater bars. My dad used to tell this story about the time he tried to break loose a rusted bolt on an old tractor with a 3/8ths ratchet and a piece of galvanized pipe. Snapped the ratchet clean in half, sent him stumbling backwards into a pile of scrap lumber. He stood there cussing for a solid five minutes. Thing is, he found the exact same bolt twenty years later and used his 1/2 inch drive with a six foot section of fence post. That worked but he bent the socket. So I guess the moral is, sometimes those old timers have a point about breaking stuff, but they don't always tell you which stuff.