Doing a Resto, figured out a fix for a stuck shifter...

One of my specialities is vintage bike restoration. A stuck shifter is common on 20+ year old bikes. Shimano grease has a tendency to turn into resin. Usually the fix is to break down the whole shifter and reassemble it. That is a 2 hour job due to the difficulty in putting it back together, springs and rachets all. My two hour rate and the resto quote gets pretty steep, But I still want to get these bikes back in the road. A cheaper fix will help me do that.

This weekend, I was overhauling an Alpinestars Cromega. The only thing hanging me up is the front shifter. Figured a solvent tank soak and a rebuild of the offending rachet could be done, and I did it 4 day soak in a solvent tank and 30 minute rebuild of the shifter. No major disassembly. Saweet!

The owner is turning it into a sick grocery bike

 

Shooting the shifter with brake cleaner or WD40 didn't work?

 

I was thinking the other day how much I'd like to pickup an ECS frame, they got popular when I was really getting into MTBing but never got one then. I rebuilt a Deore thumb shifter once, I vowed never again and I've stuck to it :clap:

 

Is that a soak-up pad? How decked out is your home workshop? You seemed to be equipped better than some industrial workshop, one that needs to absorb petroleum-based fluids that have a tendency to leak/spill out.

 

Yeah, I had good luck recently spraying a 25 year old one with PB50 and allowing it to soak for a couple of days. No rebuild needed.

 

I don't know it as what you said, but it works the same. I know it as an absorbent pad.

As for brake cleaner, I've used that before, and it will melt the shifter casing. Ain't doing that again.

Bad news. I fixed the shifter to go from granny to mid to large ring. But right now, it will shift down from mid to granny and large to granny, but won't shift from large to mid. To get from large to mid, one has to shift to granny then go to mid.

Im going to let it soak a couple more days. If it doesn't fix itself, I'm giving up and tell the client to buy another shifter. As it is, the partial fix will be a loss for me.

 

I used this thread, good info:
http://tribes.tribe.net/bikenuts/thread/9fe6cbed-4d33-4992-b512-a009760ae5df