Clicking in middle gear range - what to adjust?

MeWantBroadband

Does anyone know what adjustment is needed when you get clicking in the middle range of the front dérailleur?

I think the actual clicking is coming from the back gears, but it only happens in the middle range - low and high ranges are fine. This occurs worst when using the middle range with the lower and middles gears in the back dérailleur. It is a clicking/rattling sound approx. once per pedal.

It is a pain because I mostly switch between mid and high ranges on the road, and now with my new bike I am uncomfortable using mid in case it causes wear/damage.

On that topic, am I right in assuming I should be able to use all the gears when in the middle range?

I have a nine speed Deore LX set (48/36/26 at the front, 11-26 at the back on a hybrid bike). On my old 3x7 speed bike, I could use all the gears in the middle range, but I knew it was a bad idea to use low range with 7th gear, or high range with 1st gear, as you bend the chain.

bcmf

You may want 'trim' FD as you move up and down the rear gears. As you move the rrear gears it will move the chain and may be making contact with the FD.Small adjustments to your FD via the shifter should sort it
OR
Find the gear that it is roughest/noisiest in. Where the cable goes into the rear mech there will be a barrel adjuster. Turn it anti-clockwise 1/4 of a turn at a time until it gets smooth again. May take a couple of turns to get it sorted

munsterleinster

I've read this a few times and my brain is starting to hurt..
Just to confirm, it happens:
- in middle ring only
- only on the middle rear sprockets (but never the smaller or larger ones)
- it's a clicking or rattling (sounds like it's in the rear end)
- once per revolution of the cranks

If it's exactly once per revolution of the cranks it almost certantly has to be at the front end... Check if front rings are slightly bent of if the FD has slipped downwards and is rubbing the outer chainring.

If it's less than once per revolution of the cranks, check if you have a stiff link on the chain

If it's more than once per revolution of the cranks it's probaly at the back end.

Sorry I can't be more helpful on this, but the information doesn't seem to add up

On the question of the grears you shouldn't use. Best not to use 1 & 2 in the outer ring. For the middle, have a look and see how the alignment is. If the angle looks steeper on one end than the other, avoid the extreme at that end (at a guess, that means avoiding 9 in the middle ring)

Lumen

munsterleinster wrote: »

only on the middle rear sprockets (but never the smaller or larger ones)

No, the OP says:

"This occurs worst when using the middle range with the lower and middles gears in the back dérailleur"

The confusion is due to the avoidance of the word "chainring".

I would just go through the normal procedure for adjusting front and rear derailleurs.

http://bicycletutor.com/adjust-rear-derailleur/
http://bicycletutor.com/adjust-front-derailer/

pprendeville

having the same problem and its driving me bananas. theres always one gear that it wont go into smoothly and when i adjust it 1/4 turn it messes up the shifting for the rest of the gears. aaarrrrhhhh:mad:

ckeego

pprendeville wrote: »

having the same problem and its driving me bananas. theres always one gear that it wont go into smoothly and when i adjust it 1/4 turn it messes up the shifting for the rest of the gears. aaarrrrhhhh:mad:

This exact thing happened to me prior to the WW200 and I tried changing cassette, cables, cable housing-you name it and I tried it. I went down to my new Lbs in Greystones and the techs there diagnosed a slightly out of line (ie bent!!) rear dropout.

They did a laser check on the alignment and hey presto, after a slight straightening, the shifting is as good as Day 1.

Obviously this is on a carbon bike with alu dropouts and would not apply to all carbon frames...worth a try! Hopefully of some help as "coughing" shifts are so bloody frustrating

MeWantBroadband

Lumen wrote: »

The confusion is due to the avoidance of the word "chainring".

"That is the sort of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put."

Conceptually the bike provides 3 ranges and 9 gears.

MeWantBroadband

Thanks folks. Figured it out. For anyone else who stumbles on to this when searching, I will explain.

Problem:
I will define and use this terminology - bike has three 'ranges' - high, mid, low (chainrings) at the front, and 9 gears (sprockets/cogs) at the back - 1 is the biggest (lowest gearing) and 9 is the smallest (highest gearing).

There was grinding/clicking in M-5 to M-9.

The only thing I was wrong about when I started this thread is that the noise was actually coming from the front - the chain was rubbing on the inside of the derailleur. I could tell this last night when I first tried to fix the problem.

The online guide I saw made adjusting the front derailleur seem trickier than the rear, as you might need both hands and I don't have anything to suspend like in the video. My mechanical intuition told me it was probably not the high or low adjustment anyway as the problem happens in the middle range.

Solution:
Adjusting the front barrel adjuster to loosen it - a lot - fixed it. It was way off what the rear one was at which was a clue.
The barrel adjustments on my bike (Trek FX) are on the handle bars, presumably to make it easy to tweak. Some bikes have the barrel adjustments near the derailleurs.

pprendeville

I can get the shifting spot on when going from 39/53-25 down to 39/53-11 on an Ultegra 6700 10 speed cassette no problem but when coming back up the other way I'm having the problems, i.e. I have to do something like a 1.5 shift instead of a single shift to change. It's a newish derailleur (4 months old - Ultegra 6700) so it shouldn't be a problem with the spring on it one would imagine.

Interesting pointed made about the rear dropout. I'd never thought of this. I used my turbo for mounting the bike on when adjusting the gears and have to use a skewer that Tacx supplied so changed over. When I tightened it up I looked at the rear dropout and it moved over a significant amount. This begs the question how tight do you need to tighten the nut on the skewer and should there be movement in the rear dropout. I guess logically there will be some movement due to the force of the nut pushing against it, and the movement distance dependant on how tight the nut is.

I also realised that adjusting the gears on the turbo and then having to swap over the skewer and maybe tightening the nut slightly differently will have rendered the tweaking useless as it might be off again.

So does anyone have good advice for my problem, i.e. shifting smoothly back up the cassette into the granny gear? I have stopped changing over the skewer when putting the bike on the turbo (it's a Dura Ace skewer on the rear wheel and just about stays in place on the turbo but you wouldn't want to sit on the bike) so there will be no movement of the rear derailleur when taking it down off the turbo.

doozerie

pprendeville wrote: »

I can get the shifting spot on when going from 39/53-25 down to 39/53-11 on an Ultegra 6700 10 speed cassette no problem but when coming back up the other way I'm having the problems, i.e. I have to do something like a 1.5 shift instead of a single shift to change. It's a newish derailleur (4 months old - Ultegra 6700) so it shouldn't be a problem with the spring on it one would imagine.

Perhaps it is a problem with the lever? Campag levers have an internal spring which it is advised to replace after 10,000 miles or so (according to one source I've read) and apparently one of the symptoms of the spring needing replacing is that gear changes will happen 2 at a time in the middle of the cassette. I don't know about the internals of Shimano levers though so they may or may not be comparable.

pprendeville wrote:

Interesting pointed made about the rear dropout. I'd never thought of this. I used my turbo for mounting the bike on when adjusting the gears and have to use a skewer that Tacx supplied so changed over. When I tightened it up I looked at the rear dropout and it moved over a significant amount. This begs the question how tight do you need to tighten the nut on the skewer and should there be movement in the rear dropout. I guess logically there will be some movement due to the force of the nut pushing against it, and the movement distance dependant on how tight the nut is.

I also realised that adjusting the gears on the turbo and then having to swap over the skewer and maybe tightening the nut slightly differently will have rendered the tweaking useless as it might be off again.

I may be misunderstanding what you wrote but I can't see how changing to a different skewer will affect the position of the rear mech. The movement of the dropout is limited by the outer locknut on the axle so regardless of how tightly you clamp the wheel with the skewer the position of the rear mech relative to the cassette should be the same - unless the dropout is bent that is, but I'd expect that it would have to be significantly bent for tightening the skewer to move the mech.

pprendeville

doozerie wrote: »

Perhaps it is a problem with the lever? Campag levers have an internal spring which it is advised to replace after 10,000 miles or so (according to one source I've read) and apparently one of the symptoms of the spring needing replacing is that gear changes will happen 2 at a time in the middle of the cassette. I don't know about the internals of Shimano levers though so they may or may not be comparable.



I may be misunderstanding what you wrote but I can't see how changing to a different skewer will affect the position of the rear mech. The movement of the dropout is limited by the outer locknut on the axle so regardless of how tightly you clamp the wheel with the skewer the position of the rear mech relative to the cassette should be the same - unless the dropout is bent that is, but I'd expect that it would have to be significantly bent for tightening the skewer to move the mech.

will try posting a video of what i mean later.