buying advice for new front mech

catalyst

hey guys / girls.
first post as a new user!
i am wanting to replace the Acera front mech on my fire mountain. going on what i can afford i have decided on the deore xt series. the current mech is a top swing, and the xt im looking at is a bottom swing model (XT M771).
judging by the pic, would a bottom swing clamp avoid the bottle cage bolts on the frame? or should i go for the XT M770 top swing?

i dont plan on using the bottle cage mounts.

cheers,
cat.

supersonic

Is your current mech not working?

catalyst

its working fine, i just want to upgrade to something smoother and better in general

Giraffoto

catalyst wrote:

its working fine, i just want to upgrade to something smoother and better in general

I can fully understand, I had a perfectly functional Acera front mech that I swapped for an SLX for no good reason at all. I can never remember which is top- and which bottom swing, but the Acera had the clamp way down and the SLX the clamp further up on the tube. I should reiterate, I had no reason to do this - I hardly ever use the front changer, the Acera was fine, but I had an SLX rear mech and shift levers and had a bizarre compulsion to make them match. Flogged the old one for a tenner on eBay mind.

Anyway - it all works nicely. It seems that within certain limits (such as clamp size and the number of rings it's meant to work with), you can replace one Shimano 9-speed compatible front mech with any other Shimano 9-speed compatible front mech and it will work. So go for it! Stick the old one on eBay and you won't be losing too much money, either

EH_Rob

I upgraded my old Alivio one for an SLX (it came with the groupset I bought), and whilst shifting is now better, this might just be because the mech is set up better than my old one.

Also the difference in weight between those two was virtually nothing. Don't know about Acera mechs though.

Neal_

I got the XT M771 bottom swing recently as I wasn't sure the top swing would clear the bottle cage bolts and I'm very happy with it as it now shifts in all conditions under load which my cheap SRAM mech didn't.

supersonic

If it is working fine, then leave it. A new one will make no difference at all to shifting - only difference will be marginally lighter and will last a bit longer.