Just acquired some lovely XTR M960 v-brakes with M900 levers. The brakes are in great nick, the levers need a bit of a tidy up so…

Does anyone know how to strip them down? I’ve got the little bits off so just need to get the levers off. Does the pin just punch out?

ST-M900 being early 90s 8 speed STIs…? What are you actually trying to get off? Taking the shifters apart is absolutely not recommended, there’ll be springs everywhere. Or do you just mean the brake levers?

They’re designed for cantis, so not great with v-brakes.

The shifter pods have been butchered off by a previous owner so just trying to get the lever out to give it all a good clean and maybe a polish and anodise.

They’re designed for cantis, so not great with v-brakes.

They’ll be going on my daughters little bike so don’t think there’s too much to worry about there 😉

I’d sooner have some £10 v-brake levers than duff XTR ones that will feel spongy. Waste of effort IMO.

You mean these, right (minus the pods)?

According to the diagram (#9, below), possibly you can drive out the shaft which holds the lever to the body, but I’d imagine it may be tricky to do without deforming the body and preventing reassembly. It’s ages since I had one in front of me. I used to be able to strip down and repair the shifter pods, but I never pulled a brake lever from the body.

Managed to get them apart. There’s a small grubscrew that locks the lever onto the pin (#12). The pin then falls out.

They do look a bit the worse for wear so might keep my eyes out for some nice v-brake levers..

Put a wanted ad on Retrobike for some BL-M739 XT v-Brake levers. A few years ago, most online bike shops still had these NOS, so there are tons floating about. I imagine you could get a set for a few bob.

XTR always looked nicer though! You could still get them until M970, although functionally unchanged from M950s.

Avid Ultimate if you want to go proper mental, probably worth buttons now!