Adapter for Sockets

You've got a 1/2" drive torque wrench and a 3/8" drive bottom-bracket socket. Or a 3/8" ratchet and a 1/4" Torx bit socket. Or a 1/4" ratchet and a 1/2" pedal socket on a customer bike. The drive sizes don't match, the socket doesn't fit the ratchet, and the job stops. A drive adapter bridges the gap.

We make socket adapters in the common configurations; 1/4" to 3/8", 3/8" to 1/2", 1/2" to 3/8", 3/8" to 1/4"; so whatever combination of ratchet and socket you've got, there's a path between them. The adapter goes on the ratchet's square drive at one end and accepts the socket's square drive at the other. Snap-in ball detents on both ends keep everything together under hand-torque.

The bodies are drop-forged chrome-vanadium, hardened and tempered through the same process Unior uses for the rest of the socket line. That construction holds up to the full working torque of any hand-drive ratchet or torque wrench, including the high-torque jobs (large hub axle nuts, BB cup install at spec) where a soft adapter would twist.

What they aren't rated for

No drive adapter at this price point is rated for use in an impact wrench. The shock-loading from an impact driver concentrates stress at the cross-section change between the two drive sizes, and adapters fail there. If you've got a job that needs an impact wrench, use a matched-drive impact socket on a matched-drive impact wrench. Don't bridge through an adapter.

If you do bridge through an adapter and it fails, the cost of a replacement is low. The cost of a damaged ratchet or torque wrench is not. Use the right rating for the job.

Specs

• Drop-forged chrome-vanadium body
• Hardened and tempered
• Ball-detent retention on both drive ends
• Article number: 238.7/1 (configuration varies by drive)

Built in Zreče, Slovenia

Unior has been forging hand tools in Zreče since 1919, and sponsors professional road and mountain-bike race teams. The 238 socket adapters are part of the same drop-forged socket line that supplies Unior's professional cassette sockets, BB tools, and ratchet handles. Same steel, same heat treatment, same forging line; at a smaller scale for a smaller part.

Pro tip from our mechanics

A drive adapter looks like a small part, and it is, but the one time you need one is the one time the job stops without it. Our workshop hand tools guide covers the ratchet-and-adapter pairing for bike-specific sockets and the rest of the workshop hand-tool layer: Workshop hand tools every bike shop needs →