Ultegra 6700 - What cables

baznett

Hi All,

Recently bought myself Ultegra 6700 groupset. Was previously running Sora with the old Tiagra shifters ran like a dream.

Installed the new shifters and mech etc with new inner cables and new outer on front shifter and the rear part of the rear shifter cable. But having problems with the rear shifting. Shift is truly awful.

Used to alignment tool to make sure my hanger was straight, needed a slight tweek but nothing much, but still can't get it to shift properly.

Do I need a specific gear cable/outer to make it run as well as it should. Ive just used come cables that we have in the workshop at work. Now someone has mentioned the dura ace cables....but £26.99.....! :idea:

Thoughts? All I can think of it so change the whole outer on the rear mech but when I installed the outer appeared to be pretty clean.

Zerotails99

What do you mean by shifting being 'awful'?

Outer should be a 4mm gear cable and the road inners are pretty much the same. Although the premium cables give better shifting, the difference is very tiny if noticeable at all. So your awful shifting is down to improper adjustments or installation im afraid

baznett

by awful I mean it just won't shift properly at all no matter what adjustments are made.
Once the cable has been tensioned correctly it'll shift up ok but won't come back down properly, making me think the cable is catching somewhere but all the outers seem fine at the ends.
If I get it to come down nicely it won't go back up properly.
It'll then go somewhere inbetween where I won't do either properly.

The outers are 4mm gear cable outers and the inners are 100% gear cable inners because nothing else fits into the shifter.
Its 100% set up correctly, I have to build bikes every day which is why I'm getting annoyed with this issue.

keef66

Sounds like you need to investigate the bit of outer you haven't replaced. Kinked, gunked up, end not cleanly cut or opened up? But as a builder of bikes I'm assuming you've done all that....

Either that or there's something wrong with the shifter or the rear mech itself. Is it a brand new 6700 groupset, or pre-owned?

I'm thinking the latter; you'd have had new inner and outer cables with a BNIB groupset

baznett

Yeah its the latter, pre-owned, well shifters and rear mech anyway. Think I'm gonna have to change the other part of the rear outer to be on the safe side even though it appeared to be fine. Looks like I'll be going in early today to fettle it.
So as a quick thought, it not really worth getting a good set of the shimano inners and outer then no?

keef66

I've heard very good reports for the Shimano cable set, but never been able to justify the expense. I generally only replace stuff when it breaks or wears out. One day I might treat the summer bike to new cables all round...

Zerotails99

If its pre-owned then the shifter is probably defective. Putting in a more expensive cable wont fix the problem

marcusww

I have a 6700 groupset and have similar problems. Ive had it from new 2012. I have exactly the same issues. My belief is that the shifters are worn. But I have not tried the lightweight cable outers that are those solid lightweight sectional types - I think Jagwire do them amongst others

arlowood

Zerotails99 wrote:

If its pre-owned then the shifter is probably defective. Putting in a more expensive cable wont fix the problem

Could just as easily be the rear mech that's defective. OP states that he can get the shifter to move acceptibly across the gears (small to large sprocket I'm assuming) but the chain then won't change properly in the other direction. This could be down to the rear mech spring being defective or the parallelogram being crocked.

Anyway he could eliminate the rear mech by re-fitting his Sora mech with the 6700 shifters to see if they do the job. Might not be super compatible (?9-speed mech with 10-speed shifters?) but would show if the same problem was still there over at least 9 of the 10 gears.

dinyull

I've noticed when setting up my 105 shifters, that because of tension (lack of) the cable outers under the bar tape had moved slightly meaning shifts would work one way and not the other. I'd give that a check.

baznett

Well I had another play at it today before I started work, change the outer cable under the bar tape and also change it to route round the back of the bar. Was a little better but not much.

We had some new hangers come in today so stuck a new hanger on again, better but not great.
Now it will shift perfectly going up, but sluggish coming down, I'm hoping that it might just need abit of lubricating on the rear mech spring but ran out of time to have a go with it. I don't think the problem is with the shifter but possibly the mech.

The shifters and mech came from the same seller so might ask him if he had any problems with it at all.