Front dérailleur hard to place onto outer chainring

I have Shimano 105 grupo with a triple chainring and 105 Flight Deck
shifters. I have fully tuned the front dérailleur H & L and wire
tension by following the ParkTool website repair section. All working
fine as far as shifting goes, however, this bicycle has always been
difficult to shift from smaller to larger chainrings- i.e. it requires
a lot of force from my hand to shift the chainring upwards. In fact,
so much so I actually strained some muscles in my hand trying to go
from the middle to the outer chainring today.

Any ideas how I could possibly make this shifting somewhat easier
would be greatly appreciated.

Larry

wrote:
I have Shimano 105 grupo with a triple chainring and 105 Flight Deck
shifters. I have fully tuned the front dérailleur H & L and wire
tension by following the ParkTool website repair section. All working
fine as far as shifting goes, however, this bicycle has always been
difficult to shift from smaller to larger chainrings- i.e. it requires
a lot of force from my hand to shift the chainring upwards. In fact,
so much so I actually strained some muscles in my hand trying to go
from the middle to the outer chainring today.

Any ideas how I could possibly make this shifting somewhat easier
would be greatly appreciated.

Is the gear wire properly on the top side of the anchor? Running the
gear wire backwards (below the bolt) makes shifting stiff and travel
slightly longer so shifting is hard to set.

If that's OK, lube your gear wire on the plastic plate and check
elsewhere for frays or casing damage.
--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

On Jul 14, 9:57*pm, wrote:
I have Shimano 105 grupo with a triple chainring and 105 Flight Deck
shifters. I have fully tuned the front dérailleur H & L and wire
tension by following the ParkTool website repair section. All working
fine as far as shifting goes, however, this bicycle has always been
difficult to shift from smaller to larger chainrings- i.e. it requires
a lot of force from my hand to shift the chainring upwards. In fact,
so much so I actually strained some muscles in my hand trying to go
from the middle to the outer chainring today.

Any ideas how I could possibly make this shifting somewhat easier
would be greatly appreciated.

Larry

Is the action of the left shifter smooth w/o the cable attached? Under
BB guide clean and not gooned up? If all else fails, use 5mm lined der
housing and a new inner wire.

wrote:
I have Shimano 105 grupo with a triple chainring and 105 Flight Deck
shifters. I have fully tuned the front dérailleur H & L and wire
tension by following the ParkTool website repair section. All working
fine as far as shifting goes, however, this bicycle has always been
difficult to shift from smaller to larger chainrings- i.e. it requires
a lot of force from my hand to shift the chainring upwards. In fact,
so much so I actually strained some muscles in my hand trying to go
from the middle to the outer chainring today.

Any ideas how I could possibly make this shifting somewhat easier
would be greatly appreciated.

Larry

It's either friction, leverage or spring force. The friction can be in
the derailer pivot, cable housing/bb guide, or lever. The leverage can
be a bad cable angle or clamping the cable at the wrong spot on the
derailer arm.

If this bike, as you say, has always been difficult to shift, I'd guess
that the spring force is too high or it came with bad cable routing.
It's easy to try a new derailer (different make/model), front derailers
are cheap and mostly compatible. You shouldn't have to strain muscles to
shift, although that's exactly what my wife complained about last week.
In her case it was the derailer pivots that had gone stiff.

OK - thanks for all the tips. I finally gave up and took it to the
local bike shop where for a measly $10 they put me out of my misery.
The problem ended up being two-fold. A bent pivot point which meant
the wire had the wrong angle of attack to pull the derailleur outwards
and secondly the entire derailleur cage was too low and rubbing
against the upper chainring in attempts to go from middle to upper
chainring. This is apparently a problem with the Shimano 105 - all the
manuals say there should only be 1-2mm but apparently that is not
enough clearance for my front derailleur - raising it slightly solved
most of the problem.

wrote:
OK - thanks for all the tips. I finally gave up and took it to the
local bike shop where for a measly $10 they put me out of my misery.
The problem ended up being two-fold. A bent pivot point which meant
the wire had the wrong angle of attack to pull the derailleur outwards
and secondly the entire derailleur cage was too low and rubbing
against the upper chainring in attempts to go from middle to upper
chainring. This is apparently a problem with the Shimano 105 - all the
manuals say there should only be 1-2mm but apparently that is not
enough clearance for my front derailleur - raising it slightly solved
most of the problem.



That is why I always say 'put it in a stand and LOOK what happens'.


Lou