Thanks for the replies and the welcome.
"I have an 18 inch 3/8 breaker bar for those nasty bolts."
I would be more interested in one because of the reduced reaction torque than for the increased max torque. I can usually break a bolt loose by depressing the lever and just using the wrench as a normal wrench. Then when it comes loose, the ratchet spins it off. What I don't like is when it cracks my knuckles into something hard, when I do not have it well braced (or when the hair trigger catches me by surprise).
"replaced the shaped plastic valve with a hardened steel ball"
That sounds like the same one I have. I think it is a Sunex (it's up at my Mom's right now) that I bought from M-Wards about 25 years ago. I also put a steel ball in mine, but I had no idea what the plastic piece looked like. It had degenerated into a formless blob, and the ratchet wouldn't turn off. I didn't notice any improvement in control, but I didn't have a collection to different size ball bearings to experiment with. I bought a box of 100 (anyone need 99 ball bearings? Better make that 98; I might need to replace it some day)
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