Friday, April 9, 2010

Restoration Teardown: Derailleurs

The front derailleur, after cleaning, seems in fine shape. There's no reason to replace it.

The rear derailleur seems pretty good also, but it has another issue which is related to the shifters.

These Grip Shifts have been fine, but they are quite worn now and I want to replace them at least in part for looks. A second major reason is that the numbering on the rear shifter is backward. When I took delivery of the bike, Gardner explained that the XTR rear derailleur operated "backwards" to normal, pulling on the cable to move out rather than in (I think, maybe vice versa). As a result, selecting 8 on the Grip Shift gets you gear #1, 7 gets you #2, and so on. He was quite apologetic, although I never did quite understand why it had to be that way.

Anyway, that is a minor nuisance that I'd like to correct by replacing the shifters now. If I have to buy a new rear derailleur at the same time, fine. Whatever the Easy Racers staff tells me.

Since it may need to be replaced, I haven't cleaned the rear derailleur yet. It is very grungy, as rear derailleurs tend to be. Which is why I didn't take a picture of it.

No comments: