The Climb: Sram Force BL Teardown pt. 2

8:23 PM

Sram Force BL Teardown pt. 2

Sram did us all a favor and designed their levers to easily be disassembled. First, to remove the carbon blade simply lay the lever with the inboard side up as pictured. Use a pin driver and drive the black pin down and out. Sram used a clever plastic holder in the middle that wont be ruined after you remove the pin.

Next unscrew this side screw enough so that it isn’t intruding in the way of the pin that’ll be sliding out.

There is an orifice that’s facing the front of the lever, use a small pin or needle to press the pin out. Once it is sticking out far enough, use pliers to pull it out all of the way. Once the pin is out, gently wiggle the internal assembly out, first the shifter lever, then the drum.

Now it’s time to play! These levers are extremely efficient as they are already so it’s hard to find ways to save weight but I tried. This was also a great way for me to add some personal style to the part.

Pins, there’s the pivot pin and the main internal assembly pin. I’m sure one can safely and successfully save about a gram or so if they were to switch from the stock stainless (i believe that’s what it is) internal pin to an aluminum piece. As for the blade pivot pin, it feels as though it’s already aluminum, if it isn’t, i wouldn’t swap it out because it does take a good amount of shear stress from all that braking force.

The body of the lever is the source of a lot of dead weight. The problem is SRam knew this and made the piece as hollow as they could already. There is very few “Extra” material in there. I’m sure one can go ahead and drill out a lot of plastic and save some weight but I didn’t want to do that.

The aluminum (or was it magnesium) shifter lever is a tad heavy. I shaved off some of the corners and drilled in a little cutout design. Then I sanded the whole thing to get ride of the road rash that was on there.

The main lever blade was quite scarred from the previous owner so I cut a little design on there and sanded the whole thing down, now the scar is minimal.

Here’s a genuine source of weight for those who are looking to save every gram. The ratchet wheel is designed to be modular and to be used by both left and right shifters. The only difference is the right shifter uses the back portion of the ratchet while the left shifter uses the front. This means that there is a whole half side of the drum that never gets used, i.e. deadweight.

I was able to shave off about 3 grams by milling out the whole half of the ratchet that isn’t used. Had I marked the travel of the ratchet before removing it I could have been more extreme with my cutting and saved some more weight.

Here’s how it sits. A bit lighter than before and a lot cleaner looking with a dash of style. I have yet to figure out a good option for a hood at this moment.

Regular eyes will never tell that the internals have been modified.

I got my disassembly instructions from Single Ring

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Sram Force BL Teardown pt. 2