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 is the official technical partner of multiple World Tour and downhill 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 →