metal jockey wheels on xt rear mech

swod1

Does any one use metal jockey wheels on there rear derailleur?

While fitting a new cassette and chain recently I've noticed the nylon plastic wheels on my xt m786 derailleur were worn and so ordered some new replacement metal ones and fitted these.

When I've come to ride my bike I've noticed there is a lot of noise from the chain is this purely down to the metal wheels ?

I don't remember the plastic ones being this noisy.

Should I switch back to the plastic ones and keep these metal ones as spares.

My setup is sunrace mx8 11-40T cassette with kmc 10 speed chain.

I did wonder if this was because to get the mech to change on to the 40T cog I've had to wind in the b screw to stretch the cage out more than usual?

any advice would be welcome.

fenix

Metal may look shexier - but the standard jockey wheels seem best to me. You can buy them exactly the same - so I'd go with those.

LimitedGarry

It's entirely possible.
Also, the tension jockey wheel usually has shaped cogs which help it grab the chain easier (and presumably quieter). None of the alloy jockey wheels I've seen had that. They were just plain straight cogs, so that might actually be making more noise than the material itself.

swod1

LimitedGarry wrote:

It's entirely possible.
Also, the tension jockey wheel usually has shaped cogs which help it grab the chain easier (and presumably quieter). None of the alloy jockey wheels I've seen had that. They were just plain straight cogs, so that might actually be making more noise than the material itself.

yes I did notice the ones I bought they weren't marked upper and lower like others you can buy.

another bike I have has an xtr rear mech, the upper and lower wheels are definitely different to each other.

thistle_

I found aluminium jockey wheels slightly noisier, but not so much that it bothered me.

I thought the upper/lower difference was in the bearing? The lower one (I think) had some float in it to accomodate the chain line when in different gears. The KCNC wheels I have are identical though with no float - possibly hence the noise as the chain will meet the bottom cog at a slight angle.

LimitedGarry

As far as my knowledge goes, it's either the shaped teeth or loose bearing. In case of the former, you need to mind the direction in which you put the jockey wheel in.

The Rookie

Never seen a shape lower wheel, but the Shimano upper wheel is meant to move sideways so it self aligns and also aids shifting.