[kev]

It's hard to cut :} so don't. The top half and the bottom half fit into a rubber cored squared off sleeve, reduce the lentgh of this and weld it up, the rlack of rubber cushioning doesn't affect the gear change. While you're doing this bend the whole thing forward so that the gear lever is canted forward, IMO it looks good and you can set it so that the gear knob falls nicely to hand.

Kev