Old 04-25-05, 02:21 PM
  #21  
Don Cook
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Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: Memphis TN
Posts: 816

Bikes: Raleigh, Benotto, Schwinn, Trek

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There's good advice in the responses. But, there are other adjustments besides the movement caused by your front DR shifter. The height (or clearance) between the lower edge of the outer derailleur plate and the large chainring and the relative alignment (the degree of parallel) between the outer DR plate and the large chainring when viewed from above looking down, are two adjustments that should always be checked before changing the outer or inner stop limits. I suggest making the clearance and alignment adjustments with the chain removed and the DR cable detached. First make sure the DR is aligned to your chainring. Loosen the DR clamping screw until you can rotate the DR on the seat tube. By viewing the chainring and DR from above rotate the DR until the outer plate and oputer chainring are aligned. The clearance on both my 105 DR and my Dura Ace DR are set to about between .5 and 1mm. Be sure and rotate your crank slowly to make sure that even the highest chainring tooth maintains that small clearance to the the DR outer plate. Now I set the inner DR stop. That's the natural position for the front DR without a cable attached. The correct position is given as a specified gap between the inner DR plate and the smallest chainring. Use the inner stop limit screw to set this. Attach the cable and take up any slack before you tighten the allen screw that holds the cable. Shift the front DR to the outer chainring position. The correct outer position is a specified gap between the outer DR plate and the large chainring. Check either Park tool website or the maker of your derailleur for the correct gap specs. My experience with correctly adjusted and well maintained drive systems with a double chainring, is silent operation in all gear/chainring combinations. With tripples, I've never been able to get a silent drive train with the biggest/smallest combo. It always makes some noise. But of course there's good reason never to use the extreme gear/chainring combinations, as my other forum friends have already said.
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