How should an unattached SunRace R90 bar end shifter behave? A few months ago I bought a SunRace R90 9 speed bar end shifter off eBay because it was ridiculously cheap and left it in a drawer.

My 8 speed Ultegra bar end has just died and I'm considering buying a 9 speed cassette and chain and using my eBay shifter rather than forking out £40 for a new lever.

The only question is if the SunRace is in working condition.

Perhaps naively I'd expect to be able to move it through 8 'clicks'. In actual fact I can move it through about 15.

Is this normal, or has it got a fault?

Without forking out for parts I've no way to try it out.
Found this on Rivendale Bike works regarding the R90 barend 9sps:


  Use: They click but don’t index. Out of the package and not on a bike, they click about 18 times. In the span of shifting over a 9-sp cassette, they click about 13 times. This sounds trick or confusing, but it isn’t at all. Like a with a pure friction shifter, you move the lever til the shift is made. With these levers, the first three clicks coincide with the small three cogs. After that, it takes two clicks to get the subsequent cogs. 
  Now, I totally understand if this weirds you out, but don’t run away so fast—nobody on Planet Earth has shifted these levers even 1/20th as much as I have, and I’m telling you, it is a cinch. In the mid and upper range, one click isn’t enough, but two clicks are. 


Source: RIVBIKE.COM