I cleaned up & modified some brake levers today.
https://i.4cdn.org/wsg/1647930525307.webmWanted to try those Retroshift/Gevenalle levers for a long time now, and a month ago I finally found a pair for cheap (scratched up, no shifters). Tested them on my grocery bike, and I like them a lot, except the brake hoods on the Tektro levers are very wide (doesn't feel good). Decided to swap the levers & also install on a different bike.... so really I only wanted the two cnc'd bits: a block that mounts to the lever & a faux dt boss. (I think IRD makes something similar, but they've been out of stock forever.)
Old 105 levers are my favorite, but fuck the guy at Shimano that decided on black M4 set screws (takes 2mm hex) to hold the hinge pins in place. So I had to drill those out, to take the lever off, to have good access to drill a clearance hole for the retaining bolt. Replaced the set screws with M5 stainless ones.
The curve on the back of the light blue part matched poorly with this lever shape. The Tektro lever is a simpler curve, like a section from the surface of a cylinder. These Shimano levers, it's like a section from the surface of a sphere (and more narrow).
To make it fit, the options were 'shim' or 'epoxy', and I chose epoxy (it's how we level machines at work). Used a junk carbide insert to scratch the two faces that are going to be glued. Mix, apply, wait wait wait for it to harden, and even before I put the holding screw in, it was solid. Poor fit to perfect fit, no possibility of rocking back & forth.
Shimano still sells replacement hoods that fit these levers, A- grade (there's a pair of nubs on the inside you have to cut off). Factory fresh rubber for a part from 1987? Not bad.
Can't properly demo, because I don't have shift cables for the counter-pull. Or the handlebars. (Waiting on a bunch of parts in the mail). But it's a light touch, one finger for both the brake & shift levers.
