Motea Shorty Levers

[atomsplitter]

Back on August 26 I ordered a set of Motea Shorty levers for my GT and they were promptly shipped 2 days later from Germany. They arrived in Ft. Worth about 4 days after that and there they sat in Customs until last Monday. So Tuesday I decided to tackle installing them figuring at most maybe 10 minutes since both clutch and brake are hydraulic no cables to fiddle or adjuster barrels to fight. The clutch side went in smoothly with modest effort against the hydraulic pressure since I was only fighting clutch springs. The biggest time waster was trying to get the dust boot over the plunger rod as the rod seemed bigger than the hole in the boot. After a few choice cuss words I finally got the boot over the rod and it all went back together easily enough. The clutch switch was a bit of a mystery since I didn't pay a lot of attention to it's orientation when I pulled the OEM lever off (my bad, too anxious to see the new levers on). After installation to verify the clutch switch was properly set I turned on the ignition switch and attempted to start the bike without pulling the clutch and was rewarded with total silence. Pulled the clutch in and the bike fired right up. Cool onto the brake side. The brake side becaame a struggle when I couldn't fight the hydraulic plunger to line up the holes between the bracket and lever enough to insert the pivot pin. Or so I thought. No matter how much I tried I coouldn't get the pin into the lever. I called no joy and then Tom (son-in-law) to ask if he would assist. He came over the next day and we attempted to install the lever. When we couldn't get it together, Tom pulled the lever out of the bracket (and dust boot that was again a PITA) and tried to insert the pivot pin in the lever and discovered to my chagrin that the pin didn't fit. WTF? Thru some trial and error we found that the pin would go into the bottom of the lever about 1/4" and there freeze, no way would that lever pivot on the pin. Tom said he'd take it to work and have ther machine shop drill out the pivot hole enough to accomodate the pin, so my lever project is on hold until this afternoon when he gets off work and I can reassemble the brake side. So as a precautionary tale or anyone buying aftermarket handlebar levers, make sure the pivot pins fit the lever BEFORE you try to install, it will reduce your frustration quotient about 90%.