When a difficult or hard to get nut or bolt is encountered and the normal ratcheting action of the ratchet handle is restricted by lack of space, and therefore limited to a small movement of the handle, it is then possible with the 4-way to change gear to closed by pressing the two part handle forward and together, this allows the inner gear located on the end of the splined handle to engage on the flat differential gear located in the head of the ratchet. This has been achieved by building small flat differential gear into a conventional ratchet handle, neatly fitting in with the Double ratcheting Pawls.
 

This ratchet has two ratcheting Pawls, one on either side of the head. This is a very important feature of our tool as double ratcheting Pawls are normally only found in the more expensive ratchets like Snap On, sidcrome etc. 85% of the ratchets found on the market today have only got the one ratcheting Pawl.
 

The difference with these two designs is that with the single Pawl ratchets, as found by 85percent of todays ratchet handles, the single Pawl engages on the teeth located on the interior wall of the head and the blank reverse side of the head scrapes over the inner walled teeth of the head. You can imagine the wear on the teeth that is created with this type of design, especially when the ratchet is being used in a heavy torque situation, and it is this situation that causes heavy wear on the teeth in most of the todays ratchet handles. It is because of this heavy wear factor on the teeth of conventional ratchets that the more enpensive ratchets are found to have the two ratcheting pawls as found in the 4-Way Ratchet.
 

The 4-Way Ratchet was designed by an Australia Larry Alford from Western Australia, and the very high specifications for the 4-Way Ratchet, which were supplied to the Chinese manufacturer, was composed by an Australian John Bromley of Metlab Australia.
 

The 4-Way Ratchet is completely manufactured from high grade Chrome Vanadium, excepting the double ratcheting Pawls which are manufactured from high grade metal alloy by Powder Metalurgy for extreme hardness, and the high grade PVC handles.
 

The moulding to shape of the PVC handles is the last of the procedures in the manufacture of this high quality tool, and even here every care has been taken for long life and quality of use of this tool. Before the PVC handle is Injection Moulded on the handle, two holes have been previously drilled through the tem of the handle where the handle in to be located.
 

This ensures that the injected PVC will penetrate these holes and become a solid part of the handle, ensuring that after many years of wear the handle will never become loose or slip around on the metal base of the handle. This feature along with many of the other outstanding features like the quality of the polished and chrome plated finish will not even be found in such famous brand names as Stanley, Snap-On, or Sidchrome, etc.
 

A feed back I am getting from many professional mechanics is that they are choosing the 4-Way over their conventional ratchet handle to use in all ratcheting situations. They tell me the convenience of using the 4-Way is the fact that using the ratchet to break the seal of the nut and then ratcheting until the bot becomes loose and is just going back and forth with no torque on the ratchet. It is at this point that the mechanic or handyman tries to get his or her hand in on the nut or bolt to try and remove the nut by hand. Usually to find the nut is too hot or too hard to do this.
 

The mechanic or handyman using the 4-Way finds that when the same situation is confronted whilst using the 4-Way one simple changes the handle of the ratchet into the twist confiuration and simply complete the job bu twisting the nut or bolt off the last section of thread. This configuration was not considered when the tool was originally designed, but is claimed by many professional mechanics to be the better feature of the tool due to the important factor of being a huge time saver when used in this configuration.
 

A question I am often asked about the 4-Way is it possible to break the seal of a nut or bolt when using the tool in the twist configuration. The answer is no, the reason being that an average strong man or woman can only reach about 84.2 ft. psi. The tools strength will go to 116 ft. psi. so in other words you will never the 4-Way in the twisting action.
 

If you encounter a difficult to get to nut or bolt which is not rare today in the design of most engines you will find that if you can get the head of the 4-Way Ratchet over the nut or bolt then you will have a small amount of room to ratchet the handle, with this small amount of room you will find you can break the seal of the nut, this may be because of the small available room take serveral tries. Once the seal of the nut is broken it is then a easy procedure to change into the twist action and remove the nut.