Mending a shifter, or not.

[Gillstay]

Took this Sora 9 speed shifter apart to see if I could find what the problem was and I think its the small shaft at the top. Anyone tried to replace one and with any success. Could buy a broken one for spares, is my current thought. Not financially critical, but a fun task I might learn something on.

 

[Bike Tyson]

Swiss watch makers find them too intricate.

 

[Ajax Bay]

Tiagra STI dismantled (and never to be reassembled) Relatively easy to take apart!

View attachment 135253

 

[All uphill]

I managed to get a sticky one of these working a couple of years ago; it took me about 30 hours of fiddling

I could have disassembled cleaned and reassembled a complete bike more quickly.

Still it passed a few winter evenings.

 

[MichaelW2]

You need a special jig to assemble them. And at least 3 hands.

 

[Ajax Bay]

And at least 3 beers.

FTFY

 

[ColinJ]

Fix it!

I had a Campagnolo shifter which developed a fault after more than a decade of use. I found a good video on YouTube which showed exactly what to do and got the spare part for a few pounds. It would have been a nightmare without the instructions but with them it was an interesting and pleasing job.

 

[a.twiddler]

I use Sora 9 speed (or at least last time I used it, it worked) but so many other bicycling distractions these days. I just hope it keeps on working as I don't think I could fix it either. I've got so used to friction shifting on the recumbent that I might go for the course of least resistance and just fit bar end shifters if it conked out. I imagine the brake would still be usable even with the STI part disconnected.

 

[Dogtrousers]

I have a jammed 105 shifter in a cupboard. I have no plans to try to fix it. But I don't want to throw it away, you know, just in case.

 

[cougie uk]

This is something for that James May program on the TV. Definitely not my bag.

 

[GuyBoden]

I still have a set of old Campag Athena STD's from the 1990's that stopped working, I thought I might get around to fixing them, but perhaps not.

 

[presta]

I took a bar end shifter apart once just out of curiosity, it's not reasssemblable because you have to drill the riveted end off the central pillar. The hardened steel detent track had broken, which was why I could only access the bottom five or six gears. Being as it's fairly easy to make do without the top gears I'd continued using it for several hundred miles, more than long enough to get me back home from Lands End.

 

[Dogtrousers]

IIRC plain ole friction shifters have a baffling variety of dished washers. But back in the day I just used to shove them all on anyhow and they seemed to work.

 

[faster]

I once managed to reassemble one of these. The exact same type I think, Sora 3400?

In my case the small torsion spring near the top of your photo had broken. I managed to replace it and get the thing back together. It seems to work fine, but it's just a spare at the moment.

I don't think I'd bother trying to fix one again, and i try to fix almost everything.

Very frustrating - it's the sort of job where you can be 99% off the way there, then a spring right at the bottom of the sandwich of parts comes adrift and you're back to square one.

 

[ColinJ]

Very frustrating - it's the sort of job where you can be 99% off the way there, then a spring right at the bottom of the sandwich of parts comes adrift and you're back to square one.

I have a vague recollection of being 80% through reassembly of my Campagnolo shifter and spotting one small part that II had forgotten to put back!