Bicycle Mechanics - Front Derailleur

So I decided to stip and thoroughly clean and regrease my mountainbike. Everything went really well until I had to put the front derailleur back on. I guess I could have just left it on but there was some grease buildup I wanted to clean. ;)

Anyhow I get it back on, hook up the shift cable to it, and low and behold I cannot shift into 3rd gear anymore. first and second go find but in third the shift lever will not stay (clicks out). I remember reading how to set up a derailleur, but maybe I got it wrong... anyhow this is what I did.

Attach the derailleur to the frame parallel to the actual frame. once attached I tightened the low screw to position the derailleur to about 1 mm away from the chain. attached the shift cable.

Basically when I loosen the cable it will not shift into second, but when I tighten it it will not stay in third. I was tinkering with it for an hour and could not get it right! :confused:

I'm figuring I'm doing something wrong or I actually broke something. in any case it can be really frustrating hehe I am going to replace most of the parts on this bike anyway but not for another month or two so I want to get it operational for a little while longer.

Any advice would be appreciated! thanks

What kind of shifters do you have?

Make sure they are in the lowest position before you attach the cable.

shimano bottom of the line junk, I really don't know since most of the logos are worn off if I had to guess it would be SIS or something similar. But I am putting it in 1st when I try to attach. the bike is a 1990 gt all terra with all stock parts if that helps any.

I am close to 100% sure you didn't break anything; there's not much to break on a front derailleur (as opposed to a rear one!).

Why not walk (sorry, he-he) to the library and pick up a book such as Sloane's guide to bike maintenance, or Greg Lemond's ditto, or the excellent Bicycling Magazine book, and see what you're (probably) failing to do.

It's probably something really simple and you will take a 13-mm wrench and hit yourself in the head with it when you find out. That's what I do. :crash:

Good luck. (Ouch!)

Sounds like it could be your "high" limit adjustment. Try adjusting it out some.

Firstly, you probably should'nt have adjusted anything if there was no prob's in the first place ! .. anyway : with the cable undone ,mount the clamp on the seat tube (there is most probably a mark on the paint where is was last time !?) , If no marks, mount it so it aligns parralel to the chainrings , extent the cage by hand moving it toward the largest ring , it should be approx 2-3 mm above the teeth ...if not ..undo the clamp and adjust .......now, make sure your shifter is in the "lowest gear" position and re-attach the gear cable "finger tight tension" and check the operation and use the cable adjuster at the shifter end to adjust the cable tension ...since you have played with the limit screws , they now need to be set : big cog out back ,small ring at front set the (L) screw to clear the chain by ~ 1-2 mm ... small cog out back, big ring at front ,set to clear the chain by 1-2 mm whilst pushing the shifter as if to shift into the big ring ( it will come back a tad in it's resting position, due to the indexing of the shifter !) if all go's well you will need to fine tune things and go test ride !!

Sounds like you forgot to take up the slack in your shift cable.

ok I tinkered with it a bit more, and got it to this point. I can effectivly shift into all gears, but when I try to shift into third the shift lever will not stay so I have to hold it in place. It is like the tension on the cable is so great the the lever gets pulled back.

Can this be adjusted by the shift lever side cable tension adjuster? or is there another tension adjustment.

Anyhow I basically got two gears and a third if I hold the shifter. (better then nothing hehe ;)
oh yeah and thanks for everyone's help :)

Just so you don't think you're all alone in this, I had the same thing happen to me once--but long ago, and for the life of me I can't remember what turned out to be wrong. Nothing's broken, just need to adjust...SOMETHING....:confused:
(Later) OK, I thought of it. I guess it doesn't apply here. It was when my FRICTION shift lever wouldn't hold. I eventually got new levers that hold properly. But you're talking about indexed. So back to square one, or one-half, or somewhere.... :(

to tell you the truth I like friction better, but does anyone make friction for MTB?

I've heard there are discontinued ones still obtainable if you look hard enough. I like friction better, too.

Still sounds like you have slack in your cable. Have you pulled in the slack on the cable where it connects to the derailleur??

I got it fixed :D I had the derailleur too high on the tube, so it had like 5 mm clearence instead of 1-2 mm, in turn it made the cable have too much tension.

Anyhow thanks guys it works great now! :D