Rubber Lever End Thingies

[pdedse]

A story of (minor) tragedy...with a message of hope!!

It's taken me a few days to get around to writing this... Last Saturday was a beautiful day in the WNC foothills, so I took the CB up to the Brown Mountain Overlook. Nice ride, warm, lots of bikes out. After a few enjoyable miles, I pulled back down into my garage, stopped, put my feet down, then began to lean left and get off. Then WHAM! My helmet and my shoulder hit the wife's Explorer door, the bike lay down on the floor, and the wife came running out! After a moment to recover, we got it standing up and I realized that I had forgotten to put the sidestand down. Here's a Public Service Announcement -- kids, don't do this at home!! So upon inspection, the bike is fine, except for a broken clutch lever.

After finding out that the Asheville Honda (MR Cycles) is closed due to the virus, I found and ordered an OEM lever from Bike Bandit. Then, several days later, I realized that my left side RLET was now trapped on the broken lever! Tragedy! Should I just buy new?? Then I decided that some good old garage shop engineering was called for. There's just no way to pull it off due to friction. Then I realized that there's a small hole in the end. I fired up the air compressor, used my air gun and some WD 40 to blow some air into the end, and it just sort of "burped" out around the lever, and in about 30 seconds, I had the RLET removed safely and ready for re-installation on my new lever when it gets here!

I hope my experience helps someone recover their beloved RLET in the future!

I did the same thing! Before trading in my '14 Standard, I told myself I went to a lot of trouble getting those things and installing them, that they were going on my next bike...and they did...they went on my Triumph Street Twin (only had it for 2 months, wrong bike for me)...now they're on my '17ex.

And the neat thing is that once they are on one bike, they get stretched out and I think the 2nd time around they go on more easily.