Stupid LBS tricks

Blair P. Houghton said:

A couple of weeks ago I left my bike at an LBS for a teardown and lube
(it's cheap, it's quick, and they don't have to keep going back to the
LBS for parts).

The dufus who finally did the work seems to have greased my shifters.

My /friction/ shifters.

Now every time I get out of the saddle and hammer, the varying pull on
the front der cable (because of the flex in my steel frame) tugs the
lever to a slacker position, dropping the der halfway to shifting off
the big ring, so every time I sit down I have to readjust the lever.

The tension screw is plenty tight, in case you're wondering. I should
get in there with some solvent sometime soon.

The problem is that many (most?) shops lack "institutional memory". The
guys doing the work know nothing of 5/6/7SP bikes, DT shifters,
barends, friction shifters, etc.,etc. Also, those bikes are often
regarded as "another old, outdated POS" and are treated accordingly.

Quoted message said:

Mommas don't let your babies grow up to be wrenches.

Watch it, a posse might form! ;-)

Blair P. Houghton said:

A couple of weeks ago I left my bike at an LBS for a teardown and lube
(it's cheap, it's quick, and they don't have to keep going back to the
LBS for parts).

The dufus who finally did the work seems to have greased my shifters.

My /friction/ shifters.

Now every time I get out of the saddle and hammer, the varying pull on
the front der cable (because of the flex in my steel frame) tugs the
lever to a slacker position, dropping the der halfway to shifting off
the big ring, so every time I sit down I have to readjust the lever.

The tension screw is plenty tight, in case you're wondering. I should
get in there with some solvent sometime soon.

Mommas don't let your babies grow up to be wrenches.

--Blair

My LBS clamped my vintage Pinarello to a stand without using any
padding. They ruined a vintage Columbus decal.

dcg

David Griffith said:

My LBS clamped my vintage Pinarello to a stand without using any
padding. They ruined a vintage Columbus decal.

You shoulda strung 'em up and buried 'em with their cleats on.

--Blair
"Vintage vengeance."

David Griffith said:

My LBS clamped my vintage Pinarello to a stand without using any
padding. They ruined a vintage Columbus decal.

dcg

that was so you wouldn't notice where the frame was originally crimped

Blair P. Houghton said:

A couple of weeks ago I left my bike at an LBS for a teardown and lube
(it's cheap, it's quick, and they don't have to keep going back to the
LBS for parts).

The dufus who finally did the work seems to have greased my shifters.

My /friction/ shifters.

Now every time I get out of the saddle and hammer, the varying pull on
the front der cable (because of the flex in my steel frame) tugs the
lever to a slacker position, dropping the der halfway to shifting off
the big ring, so every time I sit down I have to readjust the lever.

The tension screw is plenty tight, in case you're wondering. I should
get in there with some solvent sometime soon.

Mommas don't let your babies grow up to be wrenches.

--Blair

I don't know where you come from, but friction shifters are SUPPOSED to
be lightly greased, especially campy ones. That wrench knows his
stuff. The grease allows the shifters to be tightened sufficiently to
achieve smooth progressive lever movement (w/o slipping) instead of
"ratcheting" action. If you can't seem to tighten the lever enough it's
most likely because your screw is bottoming out in the shifter boss, or
you have very worn shifter internals.

Blair P. Houghton said:

A couple of weeks ago I left my bike at an LBS for a teardown and lube
(it's cheap, it's quick, and they don't have to keep going back to the
LBS for parts).

The dufus who finally did the work seems to have greased my shifters.

My /friction/ shifters.

Now every time I get out of the saddle and hammer, the varying pull on
the front der cable (because of the flex in my steel frame) tugs the
lever to a slacker position, dropping the der halfway to shifting off
the big ring, so every time I sit down I have to readjust the lever.

The tension screw is plenty tight, in case you're wondering. I should
get in there with some solvent sometime soon.

Mommas don't let your babies grow up to be wrenches.

--Blair

I had a vintage campy freewheel removed by the LBS, because I didn't
have the right freewheel tool. The guy tried it without a vice until his
supervisor suggested putting the tool in a vice and rotating the wheel
instead. So in the vice went the tool, clamped together with a skewer,
and he turned - and turned - and turned - and turned - and turned.

I took it home and spent an hour cleaning and chasing the threads with
the only tools I had - another freewheel, picks, steel wool and
cleaners. Thankfully he only destroyed about three or four threads.

Then I bought the tool so I could do it myself in the future.

damyth said:

Blair P. Houghton said:

A couple of weeks ago I left my bike at an LBS for a teardown and lube
(it's cheap, it's quick, and they don't have to keep going back to the
LBS for parts).

The dufus who finally did the work seems to have greased my shifters.

My /friction/ shifters.

Now every time I get out of the saddle and hammer, the varying pull on
the front der cable (because of the flex in my steel frame) tugs the
lever to a slacker position, dropping the der halfway to shifting off
the big ring, so every time I sit down I have to readjust the lever.

The tension screw is plenty tight, in case you're wondering. I should
get in there with some solvent sometime soon.

Mommas don't let your babies grow up to be wrenches.

--Blair

I don't know where you come from, but friction shifters are SUPPOSED to
be lightly greased, especially campy ones. That wrench knows his
stuff. The grease allows the shifters to be tightened sufficiently to
achieve smooth progressive lever movement (w/o slipping) instead of
"ratcheting" action. If you can't seem to tighten the lever enough it's
most likely because your screw is bottoming out in the shifter boss, or
you have very worn shifter internals.

Ah, but it sounds as if the OP's bike *didn't* hava this problem before
it went to the shop. Did the screw get longer, the boss shorter or the
shifter internals wear whilst the bike was in the shop?

damyth said:

Blair P. Houghton said:

A couple of weeks ago I left my bike at an LBS for a teardown and lube
(it's cheap, it's quick, and they don't have to keep going back to the
LBS for parts).

The dufus who finally did the work seems to have greased my shifters.

My /friction/ shifters.

Now every time I get out of the saddle and hammer, the varying pull on
the front der cable (because of the flex in my steel frame) tugs the
lever to a slacker position, dropping the der halfway to shifting off
the big ring, so every time I sit down I have to readjust the lever.

The tension screw is plenty tight, in case you're wondering. I should
get in there with some solvent sometime soon.

Mommas don't let your babies grow up to be wrenches.

--Blair

I don't know where you come from, but friction shifters are SUPPOSED to
be lightly greased, especially campy ones. That wrench knows his
stuff. The grease allows the shifters to be tightened sufficiently to
achieve smooth progressive lever movement (w/o slipping) instead of
"ratcheting" action. If you can't seem to tighten the lever enough it's
most likely because your screw is bottoming out in the shifter boss, or
you have very worn shifter internals.

Dear Damyth,

I was curious, so I browsed the archives for friction shifters and
grease.

Andrew Muzi at www.yellowjersey.org agrees with you:

"Like their ancestors, Campagnolo 1013s, a nice film of oil or grease
on
clean surfaces moves easily and stays put."

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.bicycles.tech/msg/615fd82737503d34

This makes sense. After all, most metal parts intended to move back and
forth against each other are better off when lubricated.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

Quoted message said:

I don't know where you come from, but friction shifters are SUPPOSED to
be lightly greased, especially campy ones. That wrench knows his
stuff. The grease allows the shifters to be tightened sufficiently to
achieve smooth progressive lever movement (w/o slipping) instead of
"ratcheting" action. If you can't seem to tighten the lever enough it's
most likely because your screw is bottoming out in the shifter boss, or
you have very worn shifter internals.

The problem might not be where the grease is, but where it isn't. If the
mechanic didn't lube the screw that tightens the shift lever, you may not be
able to get it tight enough to hold things in place.

It's also possible that things are so worn out that the only reason things
were staying in place was due to corrosion etc. Cleaning things up exposed
those issues.

Still, it's not an excuse for not discovering in the repair stand or on a
test ride that the shifter wasn't holding things in gear. Don't know if that
warrants a rant on usenet though. Could be a visit to the shop and someone
will quickly recognize and fix the problem.

--Mike Jacoubowsky
Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReaction.com
Redwood City & Los Altos, CA USA

"damyth" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Blair P. Houghton said:

A couple of weeks ago I left my bike at an LBS for a teardown and lube
(it's cheap, it's quick, and they don't have to keep going back to the
LBS for parts).

The dufus who finally did the work seems to have greased my shifters.

My /friction/ shifters.

Now every time I get out of the saddle and hammer, the varying pull on
the front der cable (because of the flex in my steel frame) tugs the
lever to a slacker position, dropping the der halfway to shifting off
the big ring, so every time I sit down I have to readjust the lever.

The tension screw is plenty tight, in case you're wondering. I should
get in there with some solvent sometime soon.

Mommas don't let your babies grow up to be wrenches.

--Blair

I don't know where you come from, but friction shifters are SUPPOSED to
be lightly greased, especially campy ones. That wrench knows his
stuff. The grease allows the shifters to be tightened sufficiently to
achieve smooth progressive lever movement (w/o slipping) instead of
"ratcheting" action. If you can't seem to tighten the lever enough it's
most likely because your screw is bottoming out in the shifter boss, or
you have very worn shifter internals.

Blair P. Houghton said:

A couple of weeks ago I left my bike at an LBS for a teardown and lube
(it's cheap, it's quick, and they don't have to keep going back to the
LBS for parts).

The dufus who finally did the work seems to have greased my shifters.

My /friction/ shifters.

Now every time I get out of the saddle and hammer, the varying pull on
the front der cable (because of the flex in my steel frame) tugs the
lever to a slacker position, dropping the der halfway to shifting off
the big ring, so every time I sit down I have to readjust the lever.

I greased friction shifter with no problems (Campagnolo and Simplex).
A friction-shifter greased with the adjustment set pretty tight seemed
to work more consistently than one dry with the adjustment looser.

Quoted message said:

The tension screw is plenty tight, in case you're wondering. I should
get in there with some solvent sometime soon.

Can you make it tighter? If so, do it.
--
JT
****************************
Remove "remove" to reply
Visit http://www.jt10000.com
****************************

damyth said:

I don't know where you come from, but friction shifters are SUPPOSED to
be lightly greased, especially campy ones. That wrench knows his
stuff. The grease allows the shifters to be tightened sufficiently to
achieve smooth progressive lever movement (w/o slipping) instead of
"ratcheting" action.

Campy's been making stuff for almost 75 years. You are quoting
information from one particular type of shifter (indexed C-record or
something from the late 1980's). As far as I know all the friction
shifters that never indexed - from campy - FAIL to stay in position if
you grease them. I just fixed mine last week, in fact.

- Don Gillies
San Diego, CA

On 19 Sep 2006 16:34:36 -0700, [email hidden] (Donald Gillies)

Quoted message said:

damyth said:

I don't know where you come from, but friction shifters are SUPPOSED to
be lightly greased, especially campy ones. That wrench knows his
stuff. The grease allows the shifters to be tightened sufficiently to
achieve smooth progressive lever movement (w/o slipping) instead of
"ratcheting" action.

Campy's been making stuff for almost 75 years. You are quoting
information from one particular type of shifter (indexed C-record or
something from the late 1980's). As far as I know all the friction
shifters that never indexed - from campy - FAIL to stay in position if
you grease them. I just fixed mine last week, in fact.

- Don Gillies
San Diego, CA

Dear Don,

Andrew Muzi at www.yellowjersey.org disagrees with you:

"Like their ancestors, Campagnolo 1013s, a nice film of oil or grease
on clean surfaces moves easily and stays put."

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.bicycles.tech/msg/615fd82737503d34

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

Quoted message said:

Dear Don,

Quoted message said:

Andrew Muzi at www.yellowjersey.org disagrees with you:

Quoted message said:

"Like their ancestors, Campagnolo 1013s, a nice film of oil or grease
on clean surfaces moves easily and stays put."

Quoted message said:

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.bicycles.tech/msg/615fd82737503d34

Carl,

I think you might want to take this up with Andrew Muzi.

- Don Gillies
San Diego, CA

Quoted message said:

Dear Don,

Quoted message said:

Andrew Muzi at www.yellowjersey.org disagrees with you:

Quoted message said:

"Like their ancestors, Campagnolo 1013s, a nice film of oil or grease
on clean surfaces moves easily and stays put."

Quoted message said:

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.bicycles.tech/msg/615fd82737503d34

Carl,

The 1013 is a one-sided shifter of 1960 with no thumb screw.

There are at least 4 versions of the 1014 shifters ( I know because I
have all of them ), each has a different type of washer material
and/or thumb screw depth. Which ones are you ascribing to Andrew
Muzi's comments ??

I think you might want to bring these typos to the attention of Andrew
Muzi, not myself.

- Don Gillies
San Diego, CA

Blair P. Houghton said:

A couple of weeks ago I left my bike at an LBS for a teardown and lube
(it's cheap, it's quick, and they don't have to keep going back to the
LBS for parts).

The dufus who finally did the work seems to have greased my shifters.

My /friction/ shifters.

Explain to me again the advantage of going to a shop to maintain the bike?

But the auto-shifting when out of the saddle is also a symptom of the
cable guides under the bottom bracket needing lubrication. Try that, as
well as cleaning the grease out of your shifters.

--

David L. Johnson

__o | Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President
_`\(,_ | should on no account be allowed to do the job. -- Douglas Adams
(_)/ (_) |

Mike Jacoubowsky said:

Quoted message said:

I don't know where you come from, but friction shifters are SUPPOSED to
be lightly greased, especially campy ones. That wrench knows his
stuff. The grease allows the shifters to be tightened sufficiently to
achieve smooth progressive lever movement (w/o slipping) instead of
"ratcheting" action. If you can't seem to tighten the lever enough it's
most likely because your screw is bottoming out in the shifter boss, or
you have very worn shifter internals.

The problem might not be where the grease is, but where it isn't. If the
mechanic didn't lube the screw that tightens the shift lever, you may not be
able to get it tight enough to hold things in place.

It's also possible that things are so worn out that the only reason things
were staying in place was due to corrosion etc. Cleaning things up exposed
those issues.

Still, it's not an excuse for not discovering in the repair stand or on a
test ride that the shifter wasn't holding things in gear. Don't know if that
warrants a rant on usenet though. Could be a visit to the shop and someone
will quickly recognize and fix the problem.

--Mike Jacoubowsky
Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReaction.com
Redwood City & Los Altos, CA USA

"damyth" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Blair P. Houghton said:

A couple of weeks ago I left my bike at an LBS for a teardown and lube
(it's cheap, it's quick, and they don't have to keep going back to the
LBS for parts).

The dufus who finally did the work seems to have greased my shifters.

My /friction/ shifters.

Now every time I get out of the saddle and hammer, the varying pull on
the front der cable (because of the flex in my steel frame) tugs the
lever to a slacker position, dropping the der halfway to shifting off
the big ring, so every time I sit down I have to readjust the lever.

The tension screw is plenty tight, in case you're wondering. I should
get in there with some solvent sometime soon.

Mommas don't let your babies grow up to be wrenches.

--Blair

I don't know where you come from, but friction shifters are SUPPOSED to
be lightly greased, especially campy ones. That wrench knows his
stuff. The grease allows the shifters to be tightened sufficiently to
achieve smooth progressive lever movement (w/o slipping) instead of
"ratcheting" action. If you can't seem to tighten the lever enough it's
most likely because your screw is bottoming out in the shifter boss, or
you have very worn shifter internals.

This is the prime example of "no good deed goes unpunished."

The mere fact that this wrench knows to grease the friction shifter
tells me the wrench knows his stuff and is relatively thorough. Look
at how "greasing friction shifter" comes as a surprise to many people
in this thread, including at least one bike shop owner. And even out
of the total population of wrenches who do know about greasing the
shifter, I'd wager there are many who wouldn't bother greasing the
shifter for a "tune-up" job.

There are many reasons why the wrench didn't discover that the lever
wasn't tight enough. The OP says the problem only shows up when he
gets up and hammers. Perhaps the wrench is no longer a spring chicken
and doesn't have as much power as the OP, or maybe he was too short to
test ride the bike. (I belong to the latter, and can't test ride many
bikes, as I ride a 50cm myself.)

More importantly, the OP states this only happens to the left (front)
shifter. This begs the question why it doesn't happen on the right
shifter. I'd assume the wrench greased BOTH shifters.

Back in the day, it was very rare where I didn't have to grind off the
shifter screw by 1mm or more cause there was always brass or some other
junk in the boss, even on new frames. I'd say I had to grind off at
least one screw on each bike 75% of the time.

And to the OP, you can easily test the theory that the screw is
bottoming out by installing a washer betw. the screw head and the
outmost shifter assembly. I'd wager the auto-shift problem goes away.

damyth said:

I don't know where you come from, but friction shifters are SUPPOSED to
be lightly greased, especially campy ones. That wrench knows his
stuff. The grease allows the shifters to be tightened sufficiently to
achieve smooth progressive lever movement (w/o slipping) instead of
"ratcheting" action.

Hmm. I never greased my friction shifters (Campy), with no resultant
problem. They had a cork (IIRC) washer in there, which tends to not react
well with oil. But mine never ratcheted, either.

--

David L. Johnson

__o | "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored
_`\(,_ | by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." --Ralph Waldo
(_)/ (_) | Emerson

Collin O'Neill said:

I had a vintage campy freewheel removed by the LBS, because I didn't
have the right freewheel tool. The guy tried it without a vice until his
supervisor suggested putting the tool in a vice and rotating the wheel
instead. So in the vice went the tool, clamped together with a skewer,
and he turned - and turned - and turned - and turned - and turned.

When I had my frame cold set to 130mm, I also took in my rear wheels to
have them re-dished and to put 8-speed freewheels on them. They returned
my old 5-speed freewheels in a bag, since they had no idea how to remove
them. They had taken the freewheels apart and chocked the inner core in a
vice.

Last time I took anything to them, clearly.

--

David L. Johnson

__o | Enron's slogan: Respect, Communication, Integrity, and
_`\(,_ | Excellence.
(_)/ (_) |

Blair P. Houghton said:

A couple of weeks ago I left my bike at an LBS for a teardown and lube
(it's cheap, it's quick, and they don't have to keep going back to the
LBS for parts).

The dufus who finally did the work seems to have greased my shifters.

My /friction/ shifters.

Now every time I get out of the saddle and hammer, the varying pull on
the front der cable (because of the flex in my steel frame) tugs the
lever to a slacker position, dropping the der halfway to shifting off
the big ring, so every time I sit down I have to readjust the lever.

The tension screw is plenty tight, in case you're wondering. I should
get in there with some solvent sometime soon.

Mommas don't let your babies grow up to be wrenches.

--Blair

You didn't mention what model of dt shifter you have. IIRC it's
possible to assemble some incorrectly causing them not to hold. Again
IIRC I've greased mine & they held.

Good luck, John