FuN WiTh GeARs

[horsefarmer]

Setting up a rear derailleur on a frame I picked up at a swap. Digging thru my stash, trying different index shifters with a 6 speed freewheel and a regular mount Shimano Alivo derailleur.
First, I tried a early Shimano thumb shifter, nice heavy duty construction and solid click action. Then a old Falcon thumb shift little less substantial and more effort to shift with shorter lever.
I've tried used twist shifters from Shimano, SRAM and Falcon. seems like too much tension required for twist shifters to work easy and they try to rotate on the bar rather than pull the cable! I'm running the cable using original cable stops built in the frame, and the inner cable is clean and oiled. The used derailleur also worked OK on the donor bike, and shifts fine on the new frame too.
I'm thinking the effort may be caused by incorrect outer housing (it's used stuff and looks to be the non index spiral wire wrapped type stuff) any way to tell what housings I have without cutting into them?

 

[Bicycle808]

Use the compressionless stuff designed for indexed systems, even if you ultimately end up going friction; it's just better and fully worth the small expenditure....

 

[Duchess]

The only real way I know of to tell what kind of housing you have is if you look at the end after removing the cap. If it's compressionless, the end will be a bunch of wires pointing at you around the circumference. Another thing that can cause shift problems housing-wise is too tight curves or poorly-cut ends that cause excess friction.

As far as the shifters go, the problem with mixing shifters in indexing is that brands and the number of cogs in the cassette vary in their distance moved/needed per shift. Also, if it's a 6-speed freewheel, it is possibly designed for old friction setups without the ramps modern cassettes use to facilitate shifting. Friction shifters are great for mixed setups since you don't have to worry about compatibility (and are real easy to setup).

However, if it's requiring THAT much effort to shift, that sounds peculiarly bad and it might be none of these things.

 

[Bicycle808]

Just an addendum, friction set-ups tend not to work with SRAM 1:1 Actuation (9 speed), nor SRAM Exact Actuation (10+ speed), nor Shimano Dyna-Sys (mtb 10 and 11speed).... They'll shift the gears ok, but you won't get full range b/c the pull ratio for Suntour, older Shimano, Sun Race, Microshift, Campy, most vintage pre-index stuff, and pre-9 SRAM was roughly 2:1, whereas the new Shimano mtb stuff and the SRAM stuff is closer to a 1:1 pull ratio, meaning the friction shifter would need roughly twice the range to pull enough cable to go thru the entire cassette.

Duchess makes some good points about trouble-shooting indexed systems in general; it looks like Horsefarmer's problem is (so far) more with the mechanics of the cable sliding in the housing than it is with dialing-in the indexing. I'd say that fresh and well-lubed cables, fresh compressionless housing, and careful attention to the routing and length of the housing will solve that problem; then you can work on getting the index right.

 

[horsefarmer]

All my stuff is old enough that I have nothing over 7 speed. Also I'm surprised after adjusting each shifter set up that indexing works fine. The issue is effort to shift. I'm pretty sure next step is gonna be new index housing. Routing is pretty much determined by the frame design.

 

[Bicycle808]

Being that you're running an Alivio RD, I'm not surprised if the freewheel is spaced for Shimano (Suntour 6speeds were extra narrow, and i believe Campy was a little different from Shimano), that the Shimano 6-speed shifters would work, and the Falcon shifter would be designed to work with Shimano spacing and pull ratios so that's not a surprise, either. Early SRAM shifters were designed to be interchangeable with Shimano, too.

I'm kinda surprised that you have a 6speed indexed gripshifter from each of those brands but then again, we've probably seen them all at the co-op but we tend to e=immediately remove them and replace'm with friction thumbies, unless we got something better suited to the rest of the groupset lying around. The reason is, some gripshifters take special cable-ends, plus a lot of old gripshifters have some brittle plastic and, when you try to swap out a spent cable, a lot of volunteers end up breaking something. So, we usually just kinda proactively yank the gripshifters in favor of the far more durable/forgiving thumbies. The exception, of course, would be for the internal gear hubs since those don't run on friction and they need the matching shifters, generally speaking...

If your Shimano thumbies are mt60-era Deore, I'd run those. They're bombproof, have nice action, and you can switch the index to friction just by flipping a switch on the shifter body, which is incredibly helpful. Actually, regardless of the group-level or year, I'd probably suggest running the Shimano thumbies. A lot of the Shimano thumb shifters have that same index or friction option; it can be a real lifesaver if ever your indexing goes out of whack and you just wanna ride home without ghost-shifting....

 

[horsefarmer]

I got some friction out of the system. When I cut up some old housings to shorten them, I did not reinstall the brass ferule on the cut end. When the housing sat in the cable stop it got pinched. I added the ferule and it moves MUCH better! This Shimano RS30 shifter works well.

I also liked the action of this Shimano MY15 shifter.

 

[Bicycle808]

Oh, yeah.... you gotta have ferrules!