Replaced our 1990 plastic lever with SS. Also took a close look at the attachment bolts using a penetrating dye and magnifying glass, and they appeared ok. The new SS levers did initially hit the guard, particulary the transmission lever...workable but required a "special" touch to get into and out of gear...nerve racking and not a situation we wanted to accept. We spent 2 days trying to adjust the linkage for the transmission and finally turned to our yard, which quickly put a slight bend into the lever, without any cracks or visible changes. Works great. Would stress the importance of changing those old plastic levers for SS. We keep our wheel and binnacle covered when not sailing and the levers still degraded to the point of being a safety issue. This really is a critical maintenance and safety issue. One question regarding the sheared lever bolts is how much force was being applied to the levers? Would think that even a substandard bolt, with no corrosion would still require quite a bit of force to shear. On our boat, the levers do not require anywhere near the required force to activate. Just a question.