Regreasing derailleurs

FieldMusic
FieldMusic Posts: 6
edited April 2015 in Workshop
So I've been given a bike by my brother that was his friend's and he has basically been neglecting for the last 2 years. Its a good bike, probably about £1500 new, but its completely destroyed maintenance wise.

The freehub was grinding like crazy and on one of my test rides got stuck! I'm pretty poor at the moment, and didn't want to buy a new one so I completely stripped it back and set it to soak in some white spirit for a few days, which amazingly did the trick and now its working again. My problem is that as I was stripping everything back and the derailleurs were in a very bad way (the springs weren't really doing much) I figured I'd soak them too. Well now they also work great but I hear that this was actually a bad idea as there are places they need to be greased that you can't really get to.

So my question is this. Given that the derailleurs are completely degreased how should I re grease them to minimise damage.

Comments

  • rafletcher
    rafletcher Posts: 1,235
    Well the good news is that a lot of the grease will have stayed where it ought to be anyway - white spirit isn't that great a solvent - acceptable but not great. So, get some nice spray lube (not WD40, not a "dry" PTFE one, a wet one) and spray away in the crevices around the pivots. Should last you a couple of years at least.
  • DKay
    DKay Posts: 1,652
    I used to lube the pivots on my mechs, but stopped doing it a few years ago and I've not noticed any difference at all, except they now attract less grime.
    N
    N+1
  • FieldMusic
    FieldMusic Posts: 6
    Great, thanks guys, this is good news. I was surprised myself that the white spirit did such a good job at sorting out the freehub. If I get a year out of the derailleur I'll be laughing, on closer inspection I'm pretty sure its been bent and then straightened and the B tension screw seems to have been cross threaded and is now stuck... its part number 3 to be replaced, after the freehub and BB.
  • woolwich
    woolwich Posts: 298
    Op. You don't mention if you dunked your mech with the jockey wheels attached? If you did it might be a good idea to take a look at them. Some have little bearings that you could pop the seals off and repack with grease. Some have a more basic bush, again a little smear of grease would help.
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  • Mage Banan
    Mage Banan Posts: 24
    White spirit will strip the lubrication from the mechanism, and you should re-lubricate. You need to put a drop of oil on each of the pivot points. Use oil as it will wick into the moving parts by capillary action - grease is no good here. There are at least 8 pivots on the parallelogram plus the spring tensioners. As had been said, make sure to undo the 2 bolts holding the jockey wheels, dismantle, clean and re-lubricate with oil before re-assembling. Changing will be much slicker of you keep the pivots lubricated.
  • jgsi
    jgsi Posts: 5,062
    Unless it is some kind of ueber derailleur like Super Record or to lesser extent DuraAce, I'd cost out my time in fiddling about with a 'gone to wall' mech and replace it with £25 of brand new 105, especially as you mention having to replace components that are stripped or plain broke.
  • FieldMusic
    FieldMusic Posts: 6
    JGSI wrote:
    Unless it is some kind of ueber derailleur like Super Record or to lesser extent DuraAce, I'd cost out my time in fiddling about with a 'gone to wall' mech and replace it with £25 of brand new 105, especially as you mention having to replace components that are stripped or plain broke.

    Its not that fancy, the whole groupset is Ultegra and it has a chris king headset (which true to form is still perfect). I'm trying to spread the cost a bit, yeah its only £25, but it needs a new BB and freehub more. I already have a very nice bike (although not as nice as this one was new) that actually works, so I'm a bit loathed to spend anything on this one that I don't have to.
  • FieldMusic
    FieldMusic Posts: 6
    woolwich wrote:
    Op. You don't mention if you dunked your mech with the jockey wheels attached? If you did it might be a good idea to take a look at them. Some have little bearings that you could pop the seals off and repack with grease. Some have a more basic bush, again a little smear of grease would help.
    Cheers,I took apart everything I could, so yeah jockey wheels came off. I've re-lubed it at all the points the other guy mentioned and it seems smooth, so guess I'll just keep an eye on it.

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