Siezed front derailleur

toby1kenobi

Hi all,

My front dereailleur's stuck! Well, I can shift up gears but it won't come back down again (although I can't 'encourage' it back across with my foot!). This happened when I was off the road for a couple of weeks, so I'm guessing that muck and corrosion may have something to do with it. I've blasted all the moving components with water-displacing lubricant to no avail. Anything else I can try?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Toby

andyp

Clean it and fit a new cable. It usually works.

kilo

If it is a shimano front mech, there is an allen head bolt on which the cage pivots, try undoing this a little and squirting wd 40 inside

toby1kenobi

kilo wrote:

If it is a shimano front mech, there is an allen head bolt on which the cage pivots, try undoing this a little and squirting wd 40 inside

Oo, thanks for that tip, I'll have a look!

toby1kenobi

andyp wrote:

Clean it and fit a new cable. It usually works.

I've tried quite a bit to clean it, and the cable appears to be ok (i.e. it pulls up to higher gears and goes slack when trying to drop down again, not appearing to catch anywhere). Thanks anyway though!

Monty Dog

Take it off the bike and work the pivot hard by hard - sometimes gunk in the spring prevents it from working cleanly - moving the cage back and ample amount of WD40 or GT85 will help release the muck. Some mechs you can remove a cir-clip holding the pivot pin and so get a chance to give everything a good clean and lube.

redvee

when you got it off the bike give it a drowning in some degreaser. While you got the front mech take the rear mech off and go SS. I got no probs with seized mechs

toby1kenobi

Excellent, thanks for all the advice everyone, I will have a go and see if I can get the thing moving!!