Sun Race "Handy Shift" derailleurs - HOW [censored] ARE THEY?

Quoted message said:

their hard tension, or can there be some other reason for
this? (My friend has not had the bike for long, but tells
me the grip shifters were always difficult to shift).

no probs with my MGX D50 POS, but i dont shift the front cogs-
just keep it all the way high. 41 teeth... w00t.

On 4 Jul 2004 12:59:14 -0700, [email hidden] (Bob Ladbury)

Quoted message said:

My question is, if anyone has these gears or has used
them, can you confirm my conclusion about their hard
tension, or can there be some other reason for this? (My
friend has not had the bike for long, but tells me the
grip shifters were always difficult to shift).

Have you tried moving the front derailleur up or down?
Sometimes the vertical positioning can create this kind of
difficulty. Maybe start with it so that the derailleur cage
just clears the large ring as it travels out (1 mm or so)
and then raise it by 2 mm a couple of times to see if it
gets better or worse.

I don't know anything about the Sun Race shifters per se.

On 4 Jul 2004 12:59:14 -0700, [email hidden] (Bob Ladbury)

Quoted message said:

The biggest problem with the front derailleur is you have
to apply so much hand pressure to get the chain to go on
the largest sprocket, that I now have blisters all over my
hands from adjusting these derailleurs.

Replace the cable and housing. The symptoms you describe are
entirely consistent with a cable and/or housing that's
corroded or contaminated with crud. It may seem to move
freely when you test it even though it's wasted inside; when
hard shift operation is present, the first step after
lubricating the der is replacing the cable...and at least
nine times out of ten, lube won't fix a hard shift.
--
Typoes are a feature, not a bug. Some gardening required to
reply via email. Surrealism is a pectinated ranzel.

I will make the rash assumption that you've already
investigated the travel stop adjustments on the der to
confirm that the unit isn't running up against them before
the shift is completed...
--
Typoes are a feature, not a bug. Some gardening required to
reply via email. Surrealism is a pectinated ranzel.

Dan Daniel <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

On 4 Jul 2004 12:59:14 -0700, [email hidden] (Bob

Ladbury) said:

My question is, if anyone has these gears or has used
them, can you confirm my conclusion about their hard
tension, or can there be some other reason for this? (My
friend has not had the bike for long, but tells me the
grip shifters were always difficult to shift).

Have you tried moving the front derailleur up or down?
Sometimes the vertical positioning can create this kind of
difficulty. Maybe start with it so that the derailleur
cage just clears the large ring as it travels out (1 mm or
so) and then raise it by 2 mm a couple of times to see if
it gets better or worse.

I don't know anything about the Sun Race shifters per se.

Thanks for letting me know. Yes, I have tried moving the
position of the derailleur up and down on the seat tube. In
fact, the only way I could get the chain to work properly on
all 3 sprockets was to position the derailleur cage very
close to the large ring. (Moving it further away from the
large sprocket makes it SO hard to shift up to the largest
ring, that I have to use all the force I have in my other
hand to accomplish the shift!). It's so close, that the
chain occasionally gets caught between the derailleur cage
and the bottom bracket bar, during speed changes. I have
also tried to lubricate the cable - it slides pretty easily
in and out of the housing, on its own. So I'm not sure
replacing the cable or housing is the solution to the
problem, but then it might just be.

But if someone doesn't actually know the Sun Race Handy [censored]
derailleurs first hand, its hard to know whether these cheap
grip-shifters are inherently hard to use - no matter what
you try to do (which could be, say, due to the spring on the
front derailleur cage having more tension than most). After
all, I read a reference on usenet to a professional review
of these shifters on a mountain bike, and the reviewer
complained about how hard they were to shift.

On 4 Jul 2004 20:06:00 -0700, [email hidden] (Bob Ladbury)

Quoted message said:

But if someone doesn't actually know the Sun Race Handy
[censored] derailleurs first hand, its hard to know whether
these cheap grip-shifters are inherently hard to use - no
matter what you try to do (which could be, say, due to
the spring on the front derailleur cage having more
tension than most). After all, I read a reference on
usenet to a professional review of these shifters on a
mountain bike, and the reviewer complained about how hard
they were to shift.

There's a possibility that these may be as nasty as the
crappy ones on the Roadmaster Mt Storm; the shifters on that
one are SRAM, but I can't recall whether the front der even
had a name on it. On those, yes, the front often shifts hard
when first received, but by adjusting the front der's stop
at the big-sprocket end to allow a slight overshift and
setting the shifter cable adjustment so that this position
is reached just *past* the last click, with the fallback
into the ratchet stop being dead on, I've made one possible
to use without risk of blistering. Replacing the cable later
with one that was slipperier improved the shifting quite a
bit, though. Some of the cheap-bike cables are, for lack of
a more polite description, suitable only for use as
fertilizer after a period of composting.
--
Typoes are a feature, not a bug. Some gardening required to
reply via email. Surrealism is a pectinated ranzel.

Bob Ladbury said:

I've been working on the derailleurs of a friend's bike,
and I find the whole thing to be quite torturous. They are
Sun-Race "Handy [censored]" derailleurs. I am close to snapping
the cable from being frayed after so many adjustments, and
I still am not able to adjust the front derailleurs to get
the chain to fall on the lower sprocket AND at the same
time, raise itself up on the largest, and have the whole
process go smoothly without chains getting caught in the
derailleur cage on frequent occasions. The biggest problem
with the front derailleur is you have to apply so much
hand pressure to get the chain to go on the largest
sprocket, that I now have blisters all over my hands from
adjusting these derailleurs. I have a similar looking
system on my Mongoose (Grip Shift), but NO WAY do they
require so much hand tension to change gears. (and no, I
can not make the cables more slack on the front Sun Race
derailleur to ease shifting, else that causes problems
shifting gears).

After days of adjustments, I have no choice but to
conclude that the Handy Shift are inherently difficult to
shift in the lowest(?) gears (chain on largest sprocket),
even right off the factory line. I don't come to this
conclusion hastily. The cables (were) in exc. condition,
so I don't think that's the problem. There's a red tension
adjustment ring, which goes from Soft to Hard, but you
already get blisters on "Soft" and Hard makes the
nightmare of riding as bike with the Sun Race Handy Shift
grip shifters even worse. My question is, if anyone has
these gears or has used them, can you confirm my
conclusion about their hard tension, or can there be some
other reason for this? (My friend has not had the bike for
long, but tells me the grip shifters were always difficult
to shift).

Remove the wires, ensure the cable casing ends are trimmed
cleanly and reinstall the gear wires. You might just get a
couple if they are frayed already. As you feed the wire
through casing, wipe machine oil on it. If the wire runs
over a metal or nylon plate, lube that too.

Are you on the proper side of the anchor bolt? The wire
should be on the edge closest to the bike on a SunRace
front. Attaching the wire on the far side will make shifting
very difficult as you reduce the leverage.

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

Quoted message said:

Replace the cable and housing.

Going along with this, if there are kinks of ANY kind in the
housing, you will have difficulty shifting.

I would recommend dousing the derailleur and the innards of
the shifter with WD40 or similar, let it soak for a while,
then trying new cables and housing. Sometimes the FD (which
doesn't have bearings or bushings to speak of) gets its
galvanized plates corrosively welded to itself and freezes
up operation. This is most often seen on bikes left outside
in the rain and bikes that are ridden near salt water, like
at the beach.

Unless the spring's shot in the FD, chances are that you'll
be able to get it working well without blistering yourself.

FYI, cheap FDs of decent quality can be had at most bike
shops for $15 or less.

--
Phil, Squid-in-Training