DX 7-speed MTB thumbshifters

in message <40dee20e.0@entanet>, Zog The Undeniable

(') said:

Anyone ever taken the indexed one apart? Mine was getting sticky and
gear changing was atrocious, so I've disassembled it (if you do this
there's a sneaky left hand thread on the main nut holding everything
together), cleaned all the parts, which aren't worn, and reassembled
in the exact reverse order. Needless to say something is not right and
the
shift lever hardly moves, although the friction/SIS lever works OK.
I'm thinking there must be a knack to getting the shift lever in the
right position relative to the baseplate against the force of the
spring, before putting the two little steel balls in - a bit like
turning a rear mech pivot bolt before putting the circlip on.

SRAM gripshifts (at least the lower models) are quite cheap and _vastly_
better. Today I did my first reasonably long trip on my Mantra, which
has Shimano XT mechs but came with no shifters so I experimentally
fitted fifteen quid SRAM ones because I wanted to try something
different, and I'm hugely impressed. Shifting is almost gestural, you
can change as many cogs at the back as you want in one go, and you can
_trim_ _the_ _front_, which is a thing which has always annoyed me
about 'rapidfire'.

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

Due to financial constraints, the light at the end of the tunnel
has been switched off.

Simon Brooke [email hidden] opined the following...

Quoted message said:

SRAM gripshifts (at least the lower models) are quite cheap and _vastly_
better.

The cheapness comes with a price. The mechanism for holding the rotating
column into the base is a small plastic tag. After 1 week on the bent,
this snapped. Please note that there is no force on the handlebars at
all. I agree that the shifting is good, but I don't expect to have to
replace shifters on a weekly basis. My bar-end levers are now on order!

Jon