Shifters Mess up - help

Caroline_ie

For my defence, at least I tried ... I broke a gear cable last monday. Tried replace the cable this morning only to realize that the ball of the old cable has gotten lost inside the shifter. Right into the mechanism. It's a Durrace 7800 shifter. You can only dismantle so much of it.

We are operating brain surgery on it as we speak, but having been at it for the last 2 hours, we are starting to lose hope.

The internet forums are not giving up any hope...

Any idea?

Chips Lovell

Magnet?

Caroline_ie

el tonto wrote: »

Magnet?

trying that now ... it's a kitchen magnet tho ...

Beasty

If it's got in, there must be a way to get it back out again. I tend to use the "turn things upside down and shake" tactics. Do you get a rattle? Are you sure it is actually stuck in there and hasn't fallen out already?

Please update this thread as soon as you have any news:)

Keep_Her_Lit

You've probably already tried this but could gravity help you out here? Wherever the broken cable end is now stuck, it probably got there as a result of gravity, possibly combined with movement of the shifter. It should be possible to reverse this fateful sequence of events!

If the shifter is still on the bike, turn the bike upside down (or on its side, as needed) and give it a good oul shake while moving the shifter each way through its range. It may be more likely to fall out when the shifter is in either the highest or lowest gear, depending on how the internal mechanism is designed.

Can you see the cable end? If so, that improves your chances further. If there are two of you, one could look up into the shifter while the other suspends the bike from above (probably a nice light bike if it has DuraAce components).

Hope you get it sorted!

Lemag

el tonto wrote: »

Magnet?

Could you glue a suitably small magnet to another cable ball and feed it into the shifter? Of course you'd have to have it so that free side of the magnet wasn't opposed to the troublesome cable ball. Not sure where you'd get such a magnet or indeed if one sufficently small would be strong enough.

Edit - there's also the solution of turning this problem over to the LBS. Surely it'd work out cheaper than buy a new pair as per your ad in the adverts section.

Keep_Her_Lit

Re. magnets, just checked on a couple of new gear & brake cables ... the ends aren't attracted to magnets, so not sure that will work.

Caroline_ie

Beasty wrote: »

Are you sure it is actually stuck in there and hasn't fallen out already?

It's in there, yep.

Keep_Her_Lit wrote: »

If the shifter is still on the bike, turn the bike upside down (or on its side, as needed) and give it a good oul shake while moving the shifter each way through its range.

We took the shifter off t he bike. Shaked it too

It's my fault, I thought the ball had fallen out and proceeded with adding a new cable, pushing the old ball inside the mechanism very deep.

Moral of the story: Girls can't fix bikes ...

TheBlaaMan

Hoover.............?

You could increase the suction by taping something funnell-shaped - or even a piece of tubing wide enough to allow the ball to pass thru it - over the hose end and try shaking the shifter at the same time to dislodge the ball

Caroline_ie

Congratulating all of you for the lateral thinking
We finally, after 3:30H of surgery, got the b@stard out! Now we just need to adjust the spring tension ... if that's doable.

Trekker09

My method would've entailed hurtling it into the closest wall. I bow to your patience.

opel1

would trying to fit a new cable in from the opposite/reverse/wrong side have worked? as in to push the original cable end out?

Beasty

opel1 wrote: »

would trying to fit a new cable in from the opposite/reverse/wrong side have worked? as in to push the original cable end out?

I would suggest Caroline puts the offending bit back in and try this method - it may be useful for the rest of us to know if this works (or not);)

Caroline_ie

We did it!! It's fine now! took about 4 hours non stop to get it fixed.