How to alter a shimano bar pod to fit a microshift 11 speed shifter

[Andrew Turner]

I've heard of people altering their bar end pods for wider range and I was curious how one goes about doing that. I've got some microshift 11 speed bar ends but I want to lose the black pods in exchange for shimano's silver ones. 

Looks like Roman accomplished it on his Hillborne: "Mark scalloped out a Shimano barpod to fit a 10-speed MTN Microshift thumbie and it all works perfectly." 

My gut tells me I need to take a file to the top portion of the pod so the lever can get a further rotation...something like this:?

Or maybe I'm lost. If anyone can point me in the right direction, I'd appreciate it! I'd also be curious to know if anyone has done this with their silver2 bar ends and if they'd pull an 11 speed cassette with this modification. 

Thanks, 

Andrew

[Matthew Mosen]

I'm running a slightly different setup but I figured this might be useful info. I have a silver2 shifter in a riv thumb shifter mount on my 1x11 Susie. Shifts through the range easily. I would switch that 9 speed shimano shifter in your photo into friction mode and test if it'll shift through that 11 speed cassette. My guess is that it will. If you want 11 speed indexing, that's a different story. 

Specifically regarding microshift shifters, some (maybe all?) of there shifters are physically bigger than the 9 speed shimano shifter in your photo. So some material would need to be removed from the bar end pod to simply fit the shifter in there. But this has to do with the physical dimensions of the shifter, not the shift range.

I guess I need some clarification with one thing related to this topic. Is there a difference in overall cassette width when comparing, say, a 9 speed cassette and an 11 speed cassette? Seems to me that any cassette designed for an HG freehub body would be constrained to the same outer width (distance from smallest cog to biggest). As my understanding goes, the jump from 9 speed to 10 or 11 is achieved with a narrower chain and reduced spacing between adjacent cogs.

Hope this was helpful in some way.

Matt

[Andrew Turner]

Super helpful! Glad to know the Silver2 barends can work as-is with 11 speed, that's news to me. As far as pairing the microshift shifters to shimano bar ends, they fit just fine, I think the major difference I can find is that the little flat square "peg" that the shifter fits on are angled differently between the microshift and shimano pod. I'll experiment later in the week and let you know what I find. 

How's 11 speed friction for you? A lot of people seem to think it's a trim nightmare but I haven't had the pleasure of debunking that first-hand. 

Andrew

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[Andrew Turner]

Disregard. Upon further examination, it seems that Microshift 11 speed has to be paired with itself in order for indexing to work. To get around the color, I kept the pod in a jar of airstrip remover overnight and I'm still in the process of polishing the lever. So far so good! 

[Jamie W]

Heya! 

Not the exact same, but I've modded a shimano dura-ace bar end to throw a sram clutch 10speed through its full range. Required an extra 8mm of cable throw if I remember correctly. I filled off the top just as you were thinking. There doesn't appear to be any internal mechanism inhibiting the throw, just the bar pod preventing the lever from moving further. I traced out an outline with sharpie beforehand to get a nice flush curved finish, doesn't even look like a mod. I've since seen people shave them for eagle 12sp. 

[Andrew Turner]

Post-polish comparison!

 

[Pancake]

I added a thin strip of brass in the cable guide cutout of the lever. It is 2mm wide and 1mm tall. It increases the cable pull overall. Alternative to cutting the limiting section of the bar pod.

This allows me to use a 9 speed microshift lever to shift a 10 speed SRAM derailleur across a 9 speed cassette. While it doesn't align for indexing, it works nicely for friction shifting on a 9 speed cassette using a 10 speed SRAM GX derailleur. Happy to mail you one of the metal strips (I ordered extra) to experiment with. 

I have a long post about it in this group if you're interested. 

Abe