I screwed up and wasn't paying attention, and ordered a set of shifters for my old Fuji Suncrest Mountain Bike, not noticing that they are one piece units. Only one shifter is bad. Before I left town for a couple of days, I was going to order a set of new handles, but decided to look at the possibility of cutting off the old shifters, and using the new ones. I started to cut into one, and had to get ready to leave. It looks like it is doable. Has anyone ever done this? The only problem is, it might not look the best, especially when the brakes handles are relatively cheap. Thank you.

Gee, more ID of the old shifters might help us help you. Photos. part numbers? But Shimano did make a few series of shift/brake levers for MtB which had a blocky body to which both the shifter pods and the brake levers mounted to. Many of these have been modded to cut off the shifter pods to better locate the replacement shifters WRT the brake levers. Andy (who has used black Testors paint to touch up hack saw cuts many times)

Early 90's Shimano 3x7.

What's wrong with new one-piece unit's like these. They are cheap, work good and come with all new cabling.
https://www.performancebike.com/shim...54p7al/p317199
You need short pull with those brakes.

Nothing wrong with those, Trailangel, except they are on back order The problem is, I didn't pay close enough attention and notice they are a one piece unit, and ordered the shifters separately. I could send them back, or order separate brake levers. I just had another bright idea reference cutting off the current shifters, and using the new ones, with the original brake handles. I was wondering if anyone has ever done this. Thanks.

The imaged shifters are what I was referencing. Many have cut off the shifter boss from the brake lever body and used separate shifters instead. Take care to cut the boss off with a thought out location, file the raw face down and cover with black paint. Andy

Thank you for that, Andy. I greatly appreciate it.

Mike

Hacksawing off the shifter portion of integrated MTB shift/brake levers is totally fine, as long as you are not removing the clamp ot other parts necessary for the brake lever to be safely mounted. In general, this is usually possible, but there may be certain configurations or models where it is more difficult or a bad idea.

I did this mod for several customers BITD and it worked fine. The one thing that might be an issue is that the clamp remaining for the brake lever might be too wide and interfere with the separate shifters. I have never tried to narrow the clamp down because new brake levers are cheap and time is valuable.

Another option is to remove the separate shifters from their handlebar mounting clamp and see if they will bolt up on to the place where the shifters from the integrated units mount. If you have already started hacksawing then this might not be an option.