Brifter fever...

[Volnix]

Hi

Ok so I was washing the bike and at some point after relubing I noticed that the brifter was not engaging the cable of the rear deraileur.

I had a small look on the brifter inside after removing the rubber hood and it looked a bit like this:

So I said fu%k it I am gonna call the shop but the shop was closed.

So I proceded as:

-Removed the rubber hood

-Removed a small plastic cover that was attached in a "push in way" with another small plastic cover? or whatever it was, and had some view of the cable hook.

-The cable was allready half snapped. I could not locate where the cable end was going to anchor (there were lots of plastic u-shaped cuts in the bridges and basically I said fu^k it again and released the cable from the read deraileur. (I could not pull it anyway).

-After that I got the very refined tool known as the "cable cutter" and now I have the wire in two pieces! Two wires from one! Cool huh?

-Now there is no cable for the rear deraileur and ofcourse whilst on the process I touched the indicator of the gear which just kinda broke.

Basically these are Shimano 2300 shifters. They are not that expensive, compared with the rest of the line but I am having some thoughts about this whole "brifter" thing.

1. With the rubber hoods on you cant really see whats going on inside the brifter. When I removed the rubber hood I found some rust in one of the bolts that is securing the brifter on the handlebar... Not cool. Its fixable but I dont think I am gonna bother.

2. The internal mechanism seems way too flimsy and sensitive. Not to mention utterly confusing. There seem to be metalic gears which operate on plastic bridges. The whole thing seems way too easy to break. I had 2650km on those brifters.

Are there any really no-nonsense brifters which are made with metalic parts which are not that sensitive as the plastic ones? Not too expensive and maybe worh buying of ebay too...

I dont know what kind of plastic this is but it just doesnt seem too durable...

...and yes, which are more "repairable" now? Shimano or Campagnolo? I was interested in the SRAM stuff too but it seems way to exotic around here, havent seen any. I havent seen any campy either but apparently they are available from shops so I guess I can get them repaired.

If anyone got any pictures of the internal mechanism of various brifter models that would be great too...

Thanks.

 

[alfeng]

FYI. SRAM shifters could be rebuilt if you could acquire the parts ... but, they are not readily available ... in fact, it seems that even parts for other components which SRAM lists as being theoretically available are VERY difficult to acquire ...

• THAT was true in the past ... if that is still true then SRAM has, IMO, a very bad business model which will eventually catch up with them

One person has said that he (and therefore, you/anyone) can repair-or-rebuild a Shimano shifter ... maybe yes, maybe no.

• knowing that it can be done is half the battle ... but, not a battle I choose to fight

Campagnolo shifters have always been designed to be rebuilt ...

• the parts are NOT cheap & cannibalizing a less expensive Campagnolo shifter for several parts was sometimes not much more (if at all!?!) expensive than buying the parts individually if more than one small component was needed because it meant that you would also have 'new' hoods for the shifters which were being rebuilt!
• some (many?) of the V1 & V2 internals were interchangeable ... V3 internals are a complete redesign

 

[Volnix]

Originally Posted by alfeng .

some (many?) of the V1 & V2 internals were interchangeable ... V3 internals are a complete redesign

Whats V1? Is it like "Version 1" or are you referring to the Veloce group? Its about the Campagnolo ones yeah?

 

[alfeng]

Originally Posted by Volnix .

Whats V1? Is it like "Version 1" or are you referring to the Veloce group? Its about the Campagnolo ones yeah?

Sorry for my imprecision ...

I was borrowing the designations which HUDZ (!) uses to differentiate between the various generations of Campagnolo shifters because it is more concise than any other labeling which I have seen ...

• so, V1 refers to the first version of shifters whose hoods have a POINTY horn ,,,
• V2 is the second version with the ROUNDED horn ...
• V3 is the third version which looks like JIMMY NEUTRON's up swept hair style

BTW. The older RECORD/CHORUS shifters use a small ball bearing cartridge whereas the other levels of shifters use a bushing ... the internal diameter of the bushing is infinitesimally smaller than the inner diameter of the ball bearing cartridge (maybe 0.5mm difference, maybe less?!?), consequently the central shafts of the specific shifters have a slightly different diameter ... but, are otherwise "the same" mechanically & most of the Veloce (for example) shifter's internal components could be used in rebuilding a Record-or-Chorus shifter of the same generation, and vice versa.

• I'm not sure that the ball bearing cartridge truly makes that much of a difference when compared with a bushing in the shifters any more than having ball bearings in some brake calipers does-or-doesn't other than break-in time (zero break-in time for the Record/Chorus shifters & maybe 400 +/- miles for the other shifters depending a person's riding style ... in the past with V1 & V2, the difference was mostly cosmetic).

 

[Volnix]

Ok fanks...

I am gonna go to the shop later and check whats going on...