Broken left hand grip shift. Advice for repair / replacement?

[mrfacetious]

Hey guys. I just started uni this year and as I'm living away from campus,I bought a cheap commuter bike to get back and forth. I wasn't expecting any miracles for my £40 budget but lo and behold I managed to get quite a nice bike on eBay - however, days after I bought it, I came flying off in what was, suffice to say, my worst cycling experience ever. It left the left hand shifter (a twist/gripshift) shattered and not working, leaving me with only the bottom 5 gears.
The bike is a shimano double, but other than that I'm not really sure what I'm looking at - I don't think the front gears are indexed - they click, like an indexed gear would, but it takes several "clicks" to get from the smaller cog to the larger one.


As the bike was only cheap to start with I don't want to spend outrageous amounts on repairs, so I've decided to do it myself and with a cheap budget. I found this on eBay:


http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/BANKRUPT-MTN-BIKE-LEFT-HAND-GRIP-SHIFT-2-3-SPEED-NR-/170404738691?pt=UK_sportsleisure_cycling_bikeparts_SR&hash=item27ace9f683#ht_803wt_724

Is this to suit my purposes? Is it an easy fix (the original cable is still in tact)? It doesn't say which group its compatible with but it looks almost identical to my broken one and seeing as shimano gearsets are probably the most common on budget bikes I'm guessing it's ok, though any help is much appreciated!
The shifter in the link is a friction shifter so I'm guessing it's important to know whether the previous one was or wasn't index.

 

[Gerry Attrick]

Hi Mr F.

Front twist grip shifters are not usually indexed. They merely click into a number of positions and its up to the rider to trim it correctly. The shifter you have found on e-bay should work absolutely fine. I'd use the cable that comes with the new shifter as threading some twist grips can sometimes test the patience.

I hope your close inspection of the tarmac only resulted in bike injuries.

 

[mrfacetious]

Hi Mr F.

Front twist grip shifters are not usually indexed. They merely click into a number of positions and its up to the rider to trim it correctly. The shifter you have found on e-bay should work absolutely fine. I'd use the cable that comes with the new shifter as threading some twist grips can sometimes test the patience.

I hope your close inspection of the tarmac only resulted in bike injuries.

Thanks very much. Yeah I came out all right bar some cuts, bruises and annoyance. The bike however had a bent rear deraileur and the headset had come loose, though fate would have it they were doing free bicycle tuning on campus the next week so I had a bit of a break at least, they just couldn't do anything about the shifters.
Thanks again for your help!