rebuilding 105 sti shifters

Dan Lenski said:

Anybody know roughly how much it would cost to have my LBS repair a broken left Shimano 105 flightdeck brifter?

Forget it. Either buy another left shifter on eBay, or use a downtube
left shifter like Lance does in the mountain stages.

Art Harris

Dan Lenski said:

Anybody know roughly how much it would cost to have my LBS repair a
broken left Shimano 105 flightdeck brifter? I've heard they usually
send them to QBP or something.

The cost is the cost of a new lever. STI does not get repaired by
anybody, not even shimano, USA. No new small parts, not really possible
to take apart and repair.

Campagnolo is the answer to repairable shifters.

Quoted message said:

I bought a pair on ebay knowing that the left one was broken... to make
a long story short I now have numerous tiny pieces lying on the desk in
front of me. There are two that are clearly broken, one aluminum piece
with a tab broken off, and one little floaty piece that was jangling
around inside the shifter when I got it. This sure is one complicated
shifter. I wish I had an exploded diagram or something.

At least the right one works, indexed right shifting is really what I
wanted.

Dan

Qui si parla Campagnolo said:

The cost is the cost of a new lever. STI does not get repaired by
anybody, not even shimano, USA.

Not true. My friend has already taken apart two Shimano 600 Ultegra
brifters. One of the springs broke, so he changed it and put everything
back together. The other STI was fine, but he just wanted to make sure
that "unrepairability" of Shimano shifters is a myth. No pictures yet,
unfortunately. I'm tempted to do the same with my DAs. Never say never.

--
Best regards,
Rado bladteth Rzeznicki
[email hidden]

The shifter internals aren't serviceable. They're impossible to get
back together, and individual parts aren't available.

However, any Shimano dealer should be able to get you the entire
internal mechanism as a unit. You don't need the entire lever, just the
internal guts. Since yours is now apart :-) it is a simple matter to
pop the new mechanism inside.

Quoted message said:

From what I've read about Shimano STI shifters is that they are built

using robots. For a human to assemble a Shimano STI shifter he or she
would need four arms working in unison to accomplish the feat.

I've heard that... unfortunately I have a really nice Shimano
compatible wheelset so I couldn't use a campy cassette.

"Rado bladteth Rzeznicki" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Qui si parla Campagnolo said:

The cost is the cost of a new lever. STI does not get repaired by
anybody, not even shimano, USA.

Not true. My friend has already taken apart two Shimano 600 Ultegra
brifters. One of the springs broke, so he changed it and put everything
back together.

Where did he get the spring?

--
www.billcotton.com

Quoted message said:

The other STI was fine, but he just wanted to make sure
that "unrepairability" of Shimano shifters is a myth. No pictures yet,
unfortunately. I'm tempted to do the same with my DAs. Never say never.

--
Best regards,
Rado bladteth Rzeznicki
[email hidden]

Bill has an excellent "repair" instructions on his website:

http://www.billcotton.com/sti_shifter_repair.htm

You can also find Steve Alkire's STI disassembly/assembly repairs here:

http://www.cyclingforum.com/features/bestof/techtips.htm

Otherwise, the only other "trick" is thing you can do is the WD-40
flush:

http://www.chainreactionbicycles.com/noisystilevers.htm

Rado bladteth Rzeznicki said:

Qui si parla Campagnolo said:

The cost is the cost of a new lever. STI does not get repaired by
anybody, not even shimano, USA.

Not true. My friend has already taken apart two Shimano 600 Ultegra
brifters. One of the springs broke, so he changed it and put everything
back together. The other STI was fine, but he just wanted to make sure
that "unrepairability" of Shimano shifters is a myth. No pictures yet,
unfortunately. I'm tempted to do the same with my DAs. Never say never.

--
Best regards,
Rado bladteth Rzeznicki
[email hidden]

Without small parts, and the complexity of these things, I'll say
'never'. It is not practical, not recommended by shimano and again,
with only scavanged STI to get parts from...still 'never'.

Dan Lenski said:

I've heard that... unfortunately I have a really nice Shimano
compatible wheelset so I couldn't use a campy cassette.

Use the shimano cassette and shiano chain. Compatible with Campag 9s
and 10s....

Qui si parla Campagnolo said:

Use the shimano cassette and shiano chain. Compatible with Campag 9s
and 10s....

Really?? 9-speed shimano cassette, shimano derailer, + Campy
shifter??? According to Sheldon Brown, the cog spacing is different.
Does the throw of the derailer cancel it out or something?

Dan Lenski said:

Qui si parla Campagnolo said:

Use the shimano cassette and shiano chain. Compatible with Campag 9s
and 10s....

Really?? 9-speed shimano cassette, shimano derailer, + Campy
shifter??? According to Sheldon Brown, the cog spacing is different.
Does the throw of the derailer cancel it out or something?

Dunno about the shimano derailer. Shimano cassette and chain, Campag
shifter and derailer works fine.

Pat

Pat Lamb said:

Dan Lenski said:

Qui si parla Campagnolo said:

Use the shimano cassette and shiano chain. Compatible with Campag 9s
and 10s....

Really?? 9-speed shimano cassette, shimano derailer, + Campy
shifter??? According to Sheldon Brown, the cog spacing is different.
Does the throw of the derailer cancel it out or something?

Dunno about the shimano derailer. Shimano cassette and chain, Campag
shifter and derailer works fine.

Pat

Thanks, I'll look into this. Right now I'm using an old LX derailer,
which is less than ideal anyway...

If you want to use shimano rear der with Campy ergo levers, there a few
ways to make it work:

1. possibly the cheapest and easiest way, by re-routing the cable:

http://www.hubbub.com/ergoleverswshim9.htm

2. Another way is to get a J-tek shift-mate:

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/harris/shiftmate.html

http://www.peterwhitecycles.com/Shiftmate.asp

3. Or just get a Campy rear der.

YMMV, but I use Campy 9 ergo levers with Campy 9 rear der and Shimano 9
cassette/hub/chain and everything works fine. I currently switched out
my Campy 9 crankset for a low end, Shimano 7 or 8 compact crank. Seems
to work fine.

bfd said:

If you want to use shimano rear der with Campy ergo levers, there a few
ways to make it work:

1. possibly the cheapest and easiest way, by re-routing the cable:

http://www.hubbub.com/ergoleverswshim9.htm

2. Another way is to get a J-tek shift-mate:

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/harris/shiftmate.html

http://www.peterwhitecycles.com/Shiftmate.asp

3. Or just get a Campy rear der.

YMMV, but I use Campy 9 ergo levers with Campy 9 rear der and Shimano 9
cassette/hub/chain and everything works fine. I currently switched out
my Campy 9 crankset for a low end, Shimano 7 or 8 compact crank. Seems
to work fine.

Thanks for the tips, bfd. I would probably not do trick #1 since Campy
10-speed shifters seem to cost significantly more than 9-speed
shifters.

*WHY* do Campy shifters+Campy derailers work with a Shimano cassette?
I'm not doubting that they do, but for the life of me I don't
understand. The position of the big cog is 1.89 further out on the
Shimano cassette than on the Campy cassette (numbers from sheldon
brown's site). Is this simply a small enough gap not to make a
difference?

Quoted message said:

From what I can see, that 1.89mm difference that you cite is not that

big a deal. I have several different rear wheels. All 9 speeds, 2 are
shimano 9 cassette/hubs, the other is a campy 9 cassette/hub. I found
that on one shimano 9 cassette/hub it shifts *better* than the campy 9
cassette/hub as once set, no adjustment is ever necessary.. The other
shimano 9 cassette/hub only seems to shift OK and requires adjustment
to shift smoothly up and down. Interestingly, the campy 9 cassette/rear
hub, on occasions seems to shift slowly, requiring adjustment.

YMMV, I would set it up and try it. If it doesn't work well, get one of
those j-tek things that Sheldon and Peter seem to like.

Peter Chisholm said:

Quoted message said:

Use the shimano cassette and shiano chain. Compatible with Campag 9s
and 10s....

Dan Lenski said:

Really?? 9-speed shimano cassette, shimano derailer, + Campy
shifter??? According to Sheldon Brown, the cog spacing is different.
Does the throw of the derailer cancel it out or something?

No, I think Peter meant to use a Campagnolo shifter _and_ derailer, but
Shimano cassette. This does work fine. That's how my Hetchins is set
up. The sprocket spacing is slightly different, but not enough to matter.

http://sheldonbrown.org/hetchins

For mixing Campagnolo shifter and Shimano rear derailer, you need
something like the Jtek ShiftMate. I've got this setup on my Brown,
which also works great.

http://sheldonbrown.org/brown (that shows the old SunTour Cyclone rear
derailer that was formerly on this bike.)

See: http://harriscyclery.com/shiftmate for a close up of the ShiftMate
installed on my Brown.

Sheldon "Insert Nickname Here" Brown
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
| Science is nothing but trained and organized common sense, |
| differing from the latter only as a veteran may differ from |
| a raw recruit: and its methods differ from those of common |
| sense only as far as the guardsman's cut and thrust differ |
| from the manner in which a savage wields his club. |
| --T.H. Huxley |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
Harris Cyclery, West Newton, Massachusetts
Phone 617-244-9772 FAX 617-244-1041
http://harriscyclery.com
Hard-to-find parts shipped Worldwide
http://captainbike.com http://sheldonbrown.com

-snip nine miscegenation-

Dan Lenski said:

*WHY* do Campy shifters+Campy derailers work with a Shimano cassette?
I'm not doubting that they do, but for the life of me I don't
understand. The position of the big cog is 1.89 further out on the
Shimano cassette than on the Campy cassette (numbers from sheldon
brown's site). Is this simply a small enough gap not to make a
difference?

A bicycle gear system just is not that precise. If you are
mixing brands, set the index ( cable tension ) adjustment in
a middle gear. That way any variance is slight in high and low.

If you set up that system in high gear the variance is
noticeable in low gear (1.89) . Set up in center, you have
0.9 at each end. We've used SRAM, SunRace, Mavic and Shimano
nine cassettes with otherwise Chorus systems on new bikes
without any issues.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org
Open every day since 1 April, 1971