What am I missing. have just swapped the shimano bar end shifter from one bike to another. Used the same mech, cable outers (only an hour or two old), cassette, chain, chainset. new inners. All working prefect when off. Both sets of dropouts perfectly parallel and the same distance apart , same wheel and bars even. Nothing has changed that I can see that might affect it. Even the inner and outer lengths are the same. This set up ran well on the new bike before briefly swaping to the now donor bike.

Now the right shifter, whilst travelling through the usual 90 degrees only pulls the cable from 9th up to about 3rd. It even does this with no chain fitted. Its got to be the guts of the shifter but just what am I missing?

IME w/shimano 7/8s shifters you need to make sure the shifter is properly aligned (in a rotational sense) on the mount. Take it off and check. It should rotate more than 90 degrees IIRC.

Worth a try. 9 speed shifters tho. I'll go and look now.

Yeah.
I had fitted it with the lever vertically down ie in top but when I took it off it was in about 4th so I had installed it 90 degrees out and was only getting half the throw. Cheers cynic-al. Must have fitted these lever dozens of time and not made that mistake. Rushing. Spent an hour bvefore fitting what I thought were 8 speed STI's to this bike before wondering why it wouldn't shift to first. Bloody 7 speeders. was given them years ago and never checked. 😳