Loose Esterbrook Lever After J-Bar Replacement

[Venemo]

I've replaced the J-bar of one of my Esterbrook J pens with an 54mm aftermarker J-bar. After doing that I noticed that the lever is loose. While the pen otherwise worked, the rattle of the lever annoyed me enough to pull the pen apart again and try to fix it.

 

Googling for the issue revealed some insight from Brian Anderson here.

 

 

If the J bar is a replacement aftermarket bar, then you would need to remove it and file down the sides to make it flush with the inside of the barrel.

 

However I haven't found any information about how best to do this.

So I thought I would try on my own and grabbed a couple of pliers and used that to flatten the metal on sides of the J-bar. However it didn't give easily, and I'm not sure if it helped at all. I still can't insert the J-bar in a way in which the lever isn't loose. On one occasion I almost succeeded, but after trying to use the lever 2 or 3 times, it returned to being loose once again.

 

I must admit, I have no idea how to do this properly. Could somebody help with some advice, please?

[Inkling13]

Pictures please?

[Tweel]

The two sides of the pressure shoe are contacting the inside of the barrel before the spring bar has a chance to press against the underside of the lever. That creates a space within which the lever can loosely rattle. Just file down the two sides of the pressure shoe until they're nearly flush with the spring bar:

 

 

[Venemo]

This is what I did:

 

 

But then I guess this is not how it should be.

[Tweel]

Probably the flattened-down wings are forming a chord across the circle of the barrel's inner diameter that is wide enough to prevent the spring bar, again, from contacting the lever.

[Brian Anderson]

If you have any lever box spread at all near the lever ring no matter whether you flatten or grind the J bar, the lever will still flop around. I use a bench grinder to grind the sides down, but one could use a Dremel with a grinding attachment as well.

[Venemo]

Thanks for your comments guys. Looks like I misunderstood what file down means. So do you actually mean that I should get rid of the sides entirely, by cutting or grinding them down?

[Brian Anderson]

Yes

[Ron Z]

Thanks for your comments guys. Looks like I misunderstood what file down means. So do you actually mean that I should get rid of the sides entirely, by cutting or grinding them down?

 

The end of the lever on an Esterbrook doesn't stick down very far. If it isn't making contact with the spring of the pressure bar the lever will flop around. I've had a couple of cases where taking the sides of the channel down to the point where it was flush with the end of the barrel wasn't enough. I soldered a piece of paper clip in the end of the lever so that it would stick down farther. Round the end of it of just a tad so it slides over the pressure bar more easily, and do it with the lever out of the pen.