What is it with me and indexing my gears?

baccaman21

Gears n Levers - Shimano Deore
Cables - Nokon
Bike - Patriot

I give up... what's the trick with Dialling in your indexing so it's perfect? For the life of me I've tried and can't seem to get it?

Why is it that when I think I've got it sussed I go out for a ride and it just doesn't cut it under pressure.

It's doing my head in.

Here's what I'm doing. (Assuming I need to fit the chain and the gear cable is lose and hasn't been threaded through the derailer grab locking nut thing)

1. Check the High and Low limits, fine... not too far over or under.
2. Take each barrel adjuster and wind them so there approx 50/50 out/in (the assumption being this gives me enough to play with?)
3. Knock the Trigger Shifter down to the first setting
4. Take the inner cable and thread it into the relevant clasp nut on the deraileur.
5. Pull the cable so it's taught, (but not super taught) and tighten up the Nut to keep it in place.
6. Thread chain into position and connect power link - turn the crank to get it settled.
7. Knock Chain down on front to Small Cog, and keep the Chain on Little cog on rear (should be the default position for rear [with no tension on the shifter])
8. Do a pass through the range of gears whilst turning the cranks, 1 click at a time. Up and Down. It's generally rough at this point but it's ok
9. Now, down to dialling those gears.
10. I drop it down again to the start. (little cog - no tension) - Click once on shifter, turn the crank and look to see the arm moving and the chain grabs and moves up a gear. If it's not a clean change I'll tweak the adjuster a 1/4 turn a time until it's sweet.
11. I'll continue up the range until I hit the big cog... tweaking as I go.
12. Now I Crank up to the Big Ring on the Front Mech and wind up to the Big Cog on the rear cassette (so the chain runs diagonal extremes)
13. I'll then drop down the range whilst adjusting tension again on the barrel adjuster.
14. By the time I get to the bottom the gears are pretty much there. To double check I go up 2 down 1, up 2 down 1, up 2 down 1 and so on until I reach the top, and then down 2 up 1, down 2 up 1 and so on until I hit the bottom, then repeat again with the front mech on the opposite ring.
15. And that's it...

So, when it's on the stand it runs pukka... like new in fact... but when I get out and start riding... it all goes pear shaped... it's like as soon as I put the drive train under pressure, (an up hill gear change whilst putting the power on) it just doesn't do anything... the cables lose and it needs a good three or four clicks before the damn cable starts to get any tension?

So tell me. what's the deal. Am I tuning the gears wrong? Is there something I'm missing? I've checked all along the length of the hosing and can't find any obvious flaws or weak points...

What does it sound like to you?

Any advice greatfully recieved.

Cheers

nicklouse

read park tools.

sounds like cable is too slack to start with and you dont have enought tension.

could also be that the outers are too short and as you are pedalling it is causeing the mech to shift.

back on stand remove shoch and move the swing arm. mech moving?

baccaman21

I've read Park tools, Haynes guides and Sheldon Brown to death...

I've tried various tensions to begin with... some that are far too tight (obvious cos the derailieur won't go to bottom gear...) and no tension at all... (which is obviously wrong... )

with trial and error I've found that pulling the cable just enought to start making the cage move and THEN tighten up the nut.

RE: removing shock etc... I'll have a look later and get back to you... just to clarify that though? when you say is the Mech Moving, do you mean moving as in the cage shifting in out, or moving front to back? I'm assuming you mean the former as I'd imaging if the cable was too short then as the swing arm went up it would pull the cable? Is that right? In which case wouldn't I experience some kind of shifting on the trail if the suspension compressed? (I've not noticed this, but then I tend not to be pedalling when this would occur)

nicklouse

in and out.

it mat be easier foryou to align the mech with out the chain present?

baccaman21

I always remove my chain prior to aligning the cage...

supersonic

Everytime you take the cables off, especially the outers, they settle back into the stops... often needing readjusting until they are fully home.

baccaman21

The cables were changed over a year ago and I'm still struggling... surely they should have settled by now?

I'm saying I take the cables off... just release the inner cable when I've got frustrated with the whole thing and decide to start again.

supersonic

Just read this:

"an up hill gear change whilst putting the power on"

This is something you should definitely be avoiding.

nicklouse

everything is the same spd?

baccaman21

supersonic wrote:

Just read this:

"an up hill gear change whilst putting the power on"

This is something you should definitely be avoiding.

yeah I knew someone would pick up on that... I actually don't mean like an uber hill - a shallow grade would be more appropiate...

Yes nick, everything is 9 speed.

Will Snow

lbs!!!

supersonic

Yeah, i think its at that stage where another eye needs to be cast - without actually looking at it in person its hard to give more advice.

LBS!

baccaman21

ok... fairdoo's... I've been wanting to avoid that if at all possible (not exactly cash rich right now) but just so I'm all clear and that... my process for Indexing is OK is it... I'm not doing out I shouldn't do... or vice versa?

supersonic

Seems ok: a shop might spot a slightky bent hanger etc

baccaman21

Ok - cheers fellas... I'll give that a whirl.

Will Snow

baccaman21 wrote:

ok... fairdoo's... I've been wanting to avoid that if at all possible (not exactly cash rich right now) but just so I'm all clear and that... my process for Indexing is OK is it... I'm not doing out I shouldn't do... or vice versa?

hey it does suck, but if you know your shop well they prob wint even charge ya.

baccaman21

Right I've taken bike to LBS and they seem to think that as far as they can tell having a quick shufties that everything seems to be set up right.

No bent cage.

They hadn't seen NOKON cabling before and recommended me change them - which was what I expected as they'd want the sale. Anyway...

I'm gonna give it one last chance with a strip down, clean and lube up of the cable... if that fails I'm gonna have to get some new cables.

Incidentaly, nick, you mentioned earlier about the cage moving if the suspension compressed... well I noticed today that it does after riding off a kerb whilst pedalling... and lo and behold the gears shifted... so what does this suggest?

nicklouse

your cable outers are too short. (or if a full length too constrained where they need to move).

every time your sus moves the bike wants to change gear.

sort your routing out where the sus works as that will be your problem

baccaman21

kthnx I'll have a shufties when I get a chance...
ta

Anonymous

I'm incredibly anal when it comes to shifting on my bike. I get so annoyed about even minor shifting problems that I end up working myself up so much as to not enjoy the ride!

The tried and true method I've found for indexing, is to shift into the second to smallest cog at the back, and adjust the cable tension so that when you aply JUST enough tension to take up the slack in the shifter, the chain should be rubbing against the next sprocket up (one sprocket bigger).

However, I recently had massive problems getting the indexing right, until it dawned on me that my trusty XT rear mech had reached retirement age. There was just too much play in the mechanism to yield solid shifting.
So I bought a new XT Shadow rear mech, and now I'm back to digital shifting!

baccaman21

mmm k... and how old was that mech...? I mean the Deore mech is from when I got the bike new in '05... and it's seen it's fair share of abuse...? I've considered stripping everything down and reconditioning the whole damn thing... is this worth it?

I'm certianly taking the cables off later and gonna fettle away tonight...

thoughts gentlemen please...

ttfn

Anonymous

The mech was from around 2004-ish (bear in mind, it has barely been ridden from late 2005-early2007). It saw more than it's fair share of gritty muck in use though.

baccaman21

ooook.... so that begs the question, how does one know when your mech's past it's sell by date?

Anonymous

well, on mine, iwas fairly obvious, once I thought to look for it.
There was enough play in the rear mech, that no matter what gear it was in, I could easily move it to the next highest or next lowest gear with very little effort.
Also, if the mech was in 8th gear (for example) and I pushed it, so that it would actually shift into 7th gear, then try to shift to 7th using the shifter, it wouldn't move.
I could see the cable being pulled into the outer cable, and physically getting shorter, and I could see the cable pulling on the actuating arm, but all the mech did was kind of flop a bit!

baccaman21

hmmm, k, so I'm looking for floppy action (oo er) - and the cable pulling with no activity on the arm... I'm pretty sure it's not as bad as you've decribed... frustratingly I haven't got an opportunity to check it for while... got the inlaws and parents visting so gotta keep the place spotless... :S

baccaman21

Just finished stripping down the gearing system... and discovered it needed greasing up big time... I've greased it all, wired it back up and indexing is remarkably easy now...

downside... in order to get the cable back through the pod and outer shell I had to strim off the end of the cable and now it's too short really... I mean, it's still assembled and what have you but once it's all tightened up there's literally less than 10mm left poking out at the end... :S

So I'll be getting some inners shortly I guess... The one's I've got are Teflon coated... are theseworth it?

nicklouse

the biggest improvement to any gear system is well maintained cables.

personally i just run shimano outers and shimano or sram stainless inners and replace as needed.

Anonymous

Well, I've just converted to flying snakes, and I love the concept. Whether or not the concept actually works shall be seen during the winter.

scotttomo

I can vouch for the flying snakes. My shifting is so much better now with hardly any maintenence worrys even after a few muddy rides.

davydesign

It's a black art mate!

The bike shop I used to go to when I lived up in Norwich used to charge about 50p and sort the indexing out in about 60 seconds, never could figure out what the guy did tho. Takes me several hours then i give up til another day

supersonic

A good mechanic has seen it all! 50p a bargain, I'd have charged you a fiver!