Clutch and Brake Lever Virago 535

[teen]

My wife has recently purchased a Virago 535. Being a small lady 5ft 2 ", she is having real problems with the brake and clutch lever crank being bigger than her hand span.

Is there a patterned part with a smaller crank angle avaliable for purchase, if so can someone give me a link to the site or number for shop.

If not, does anyone know of a adjustable lever than is compatable with the virago.

Any other hints or tips would be appreciated.

Cheers Teen

[tinybiker]

I have small hands and find that the brake lever can be adjusted quite easily. There is a cross-head screw and locking nut in the brake leaver casting, close to the handlebars. Adjusting this won't affect the total travel, but it changes the position at which the lever starts to apply the brake i.e. it creates slack for the first part of the lever's travel towards the bar. This means if your wife can get her middle finger (= longest) to the lever it will come back very easily until she can get all her fingers around it. Just be careful to make sure that the brake lever cant come all the way back to the handlebar, you could be losing braking (and in the UK it will fail the MOT test). I hope this makes sense.

The clutch is more difficult. There are adjusters on the cable top and bottom but neither change the total travel. Again you could introduce some slack into the system, but you must ensure that the clutch fully disengages even if the lever doesn't go all the way back to the handlebars.

I know of no after market adjustable levers for the Virago, but I fitted handlebar guards from a 250cc Yamaha off-road machine without very much modification, so possibly other Yamaha levers might fit? Try auto jumbles or talk to a friendly Yamaha dealer. Another overlooked resource for mods is your local 'Vintage Motorcycle Club'. This usually full of people who can adapt/fix/make almost everything.