esassaman

Hello everyone! I'm dusting off my old Softride traveler that's been in storage for a few years and my RSX STI shifters are shot. Neither of them would shift earlier today. A heathy dose of WD-40 in the right shifter fixed it like a charm, but the left chainring shifter is just dead. It will shift maybe 5% of the time, it just won't ratchet up (it ratches down, the small lever, just fine).

I'm going on a 60-day tour in Europe and I need this bike to work. So I've got two choices as I see it. I can send my shifters to someone to fix for roundabout $50/ea, or replace them.

I'm tending toward replacing them because it just has to WORK while I'm far from home, but my question is about my rear derailler (RSX) and 7 speed casette. Do I need to upgrade everything to 9-speed? So if I buy, say, Tiagra STI brifters, do I need a 9-speed rear derailler and 9-sprocket cassette too? I'd really prefer the Deore derailler and cassette since I would much prefer that gearing. I've put quite a few miles on that bike and it's all old old components so maybe it's time to replace it all anyways? It was all working perfectly before it went into storage, but if my brifters can just go kaput from sitting idle, I wonder about the rear derailler. Though it's obviously notwhere near as complicated as those STI brifters.

I made the mistake of taking off the front screw of my right RSX brifter to take a look-see inside (which was pointless lol) but managed to get it back together and it actually is working fine after a good dousing of WD-40. I needs to be properly cleaned and lubricated from what I've read, though.

I'm going to be buying a touring bike for my son (we've whittled it down to the Novara Randonee - on sale for $800 - and Jamis Aurora) so maybe the shop will cut me a deal on a new component set for my bike. I'd prefer to install it myself since I just like to do that kind of stuff and it really helps to know your equipment when things go wrong or out of whack, which they do.

I've got a few months before launch date so plenty of time to break in some new components.

Any advice greatly appreciated. So happy I found these forums, I'll be asking lost of questions as we prepare for this trip and gear up.

Steev

Keep trying with the flushing, it often will work.
The biggest problem you'll find if you go to 9 speed is that bikes designed for 7 speed used rear drop-out spacing of 126mm and 9 (8,9,10) speed hubs on road bikes use 130mm spacing. Mountain bikes are 135mm now.
If your frame is steel, you can cold set the stays, otherwise some people are happy to just force the wider hub into the drop-outs. Makes wheel removal and installation a little more work.
Once you get past the spacing issue, you're probably looking at a new wheel, shifters, cassette and chain. Everything else should work fine.
Another option would be to troll E-bay for 7 speed shifters.
You could swap to standard brake levers and bar-end shifters. Some touring folk prefer them for simplicity and reliability.
Make sure you budget out the changes, including labor if you get the work done at a shop and compare to a complete bike upgrade. You may find it worthwhile to get a new bike.

esassaman

I'll replace my uber comfy Softride when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers in the ditch on the side of the road And I so much prefer STI, and hate bar-ends, though I think what I will do is bring a bar-end in my pack just in case an STI goes kaput, I can stick the bar-end in and be on my way.

Thanks for the tips, I had no idea about the drop-out spacing, ugh. That complicates things.

Some interesting developments. My front derailler shifter just started working today! I'm guessing the WD-40 finally worked its way in an dissolved whatever gunk froze up inside there to stop it ratcheting to a higher chainring. I've yet to reinstall the cable and take it out on the road, so we'll see... but I think your advice to keep trying was very good, if you just keep at it eventually the gunk will dissolve.

I read that once it's all flushed with WD-40 it needs to be cleaned and re-lubricated with some lithium grease. How would I clean it out? Is there some kind of solvent I can use that will totally evaporate? Seems to make sense that the WD-40 still inside there will degrade the fresh grease I squirt in there. Speaking of the right kind of grease I wonder if anyone has any tips on possibly a spray lithium grease? Something like This?

AndrewP

Try relubing with a silicone spray lubricant

operator

Don't bother taking STI's which are failing with you on a bike trip. You run the risk of them failing in god forsaken nowhere. 8 speed 2300 STI shifters retail for about $190 - you can find them online for much less.

There is ZERO point, refurbishing those shifters for use on a trip.

STI shifters are not rebuildable and those parts are not available for retail sale. Anyone who offer STI repair services without a proven track record for reliable rebuilds (this is ultra, ultra rare) is to be immediately discounted.

If you want a hassle free experience, you should have any new bike fully assembled by a shop with a proven record for doing quality assemblies - in addition to checking the wheel quality - trueness and tension. 60 day touring trip is no place for a bike built by a shop that cuts corner on quality for speed, which is a lot of them.

Steev

OK, if you want to keep the bike and stay with STI you could get brand new 9 speed shifters, 9 speed cassette and 9 speed chain and do the "8 of 9 on 7" arrangement.
This is using all 9 speed parts but removing one cog so that the cassette will fit on a 7 speed freehub body.
Here's Sheldon Brown's description. https://www.sheldonbrown.com/k7.html#up7
You still have the option of going 9 speed and spreading the stays to install the wheel.
I second the opinion to not take any parts with dubious reliability on a long tour.

HillRider

All good advice. particularly the last sentence.

If you relube the RSX brifter, use a light oil like Tri-Flow and use it copiously. Do not use grease.

As Operator said, no one rebuilds these things as a routine. The parts are not available and the best they can do is canabalize parts from another broken shifter and hope they work. 7-speed RSX has been out production for years.

Does your frame have downtube shifter bosses? If you insist on taking it on tour with the RSX STIs still in place, take a pair of downtube shifters also. They will be a lot easier to install on the road than barends when the STI's give up the ghost in the middle of nowhere.

Thasiet

Every bit of this is bunk. First generation 7 and 8 speed STI levers from RSX-Dura Ace groupsets are eminently rebuildable. I know because I do, even preemptively discounted as I am by the nattering nabobs who scream unpossible! Spare parts are usually not needed as these shifters tend to stop working when the factory grease gets old and caked up. And when parts are needed, the secondhand market provides. To restore these vintage shifters to excellent working condition (waaaaay better than some plasticky Sora 7s) all that needed is a thorough disassembly and rebuild with fresh grease. NOT a light oil, as Hillrider recommends, whose sole 'virtue' is that triflo can be applied without actually disassembling the shifter. Suffice to say, these shifters were built with grease at the factory, grease is what they need, and a light oil alone will lead to premature wear of the mechanisms.


Esassaman, if you've got the chops to figure out how to get the main lever return spring back in place to reinstall the dust cap, you probably have what it takes to rebuild your shifters yourself. First few steps: remove the grub screw that retains the lever pivot bushing, then drive the bushing out with a tool to separate the lever from the hood. There is one bolt holding the assembly together here, it takes a proprietary shimano tool, but you can get by with a small needlenose plier mounted in a vice to engage two of the four slots. Use loctite on this bolt when you reassemble as it holds the entire lever together and you don't want it coming loose. After you pull out the small paddle and spring you'll expose the main shifter core which will come out when you remove the phillips screw from the lever forging. The shifter core can come out in one intact piece if you know the secret, and will save you a lot of work, but you won't be able to degrease every nook and cranny if you don't pull it all apart. PM me if you get stuck anywhere.

Al1943

So why do you recommend using grease instead of oil?
Grease is the original problem.

I've found that WD40 is all that is needed to clean and lubricate STI shifters.

operator

Here's what. I'll eat my words when you

a) write a guide on how to rebuild those shifters
b) inform us of a someone who distributes spare parts.

Kimmo 

*cough*

As Thasiet said, older STIs are far more likely to fail from caked-up grease than breakage. And if you attempt the rebuild yourself and find broken bits, it was worth a shot.

Another option for a 7spd bike (which may be 126mm or 130mm, IIRC) is to ditch the Shimano crap for far more reliable Campy Ergolevers and rear derailleur. The old 8spd ones work a treat on 7spd cassettes.

Thasiet

Great guide there Kimmo. Read your kvetching afterwards; guess you can't expect much gratitude from the flat earthers round these parts. As the science journalist Monbiot somewhat awkwardly writes in the header of his website, "Tell people something they know already and they will thank you for it. Tell them something new and they will hate you for it"

Your guide also applies to RSX, RX-100, and 105, which are all basically identical on the inside. Triples are even easier; the triple shifter is mostly a mirror image of the right hand shifter. With the doubles getting the paddle return spring in place is a major PITA. Dura Ace has fewer parts but some areas are more complicated and because the tolerances are so much tighter it doesn't automagically work perfectly like the lower groups. 600 and below are like an AK-47, they just design slop into the system so it works fine with it.

Al1943: the old grease is the problem. Shimano has no vested interest in their products continuing to function after the warranty period expires, they would just as soon the OP buys himself a new set of 7 speed Soras, or better yet, a whole new 9 speed drivetrain... The issue with using a light lube is that the shifters were not designed to take a light lube. If you didn't have a crank puller and lockring tool, would you service a cup and cone bottom bracket by spraying WD-40 into the bearing cups? No doubt a cruddy, seized old bottom bracket would spin a bit more freely if you did that, but it won't meet its design lifespan that way.

Thasiet

dayam you even undid the circlip on the paddle lever pawl. now that is one thing I just flush out with triflo!

HillRider

I do remember seeing Kimo referenced post and even posted a comment on that thread. My only problem with this approach is that neither of you have specified a source for replacement parts if anything inside is broken or worn out so Operator's contention that they aren't available is still valid.

As to using Tri-Flow, etc. instead of grease, of course it's an expedient as it will lube the internals without disassembly and will restore function to otherwised jammed shifters. In my experience, by the time you need that approach, the shifters have tens of thousands of miles on them and they are pretty much at the end of their useful life anyway.

I wouldn't use WD-40 to lube a cup-and-cone bb I couldn't access but I would use a moderate weight oil and expect a good service life thereafter. For decades, cup-and-cone hub and bb bearings were oil lubricated.

Thasiet

Hillrider, the source of replacement parts is ebay, craigslist, and secondhand bike shops. I have a bag of about twenty STI levers that are each missing too many pieces to be completable, but still have many good bits to pick from. That's a fair point about oiling bottom brackets. The new Chris King bottom brackets have a grease port so you can use a heavy grease for training and switch to a light grease or oil for raceday.

But with shifters, you don't have a rotational motion to keep moving the lubricant around to every surface, so gravity will eventually take its course. Grease stays in place. Maybe if the shifter core were totally sealed in an oil bath, but that could never be practical, it would need too many seals, and would still leak all over your hands.

The thing about service life is, no-one really knows how many tens of thousands of miles these things are good for. These older STI levers aren't like the ergopower where there is some g-shaped spring that needs replacing every 10,000 miles. When overhauled with fresh grease they pretty much shift like new.

Al1943

My 9-speed D-A shifters quit working when 3 hard years old. After a big shot of WD40 they've worked perfectly for the last 9 years. FYI I use good axle grease on my bottom bracket bearings.

esassaman

Hm yes I have some cable guides on the downtube right where downshifters would normally be (see picture - cable temporarily removed) which I assume I can use to bolt on a downtube shifter? I like that idea better than a bar-end, you're right about it being much easier in a pinch. I'll be in western Europe (Germany, France, wherever the wind blows) so it's not like we'll be out in the boonies, and I've always done all my bike repairs myself, so I'm not much worried about stuff falling apart, it's bound to happen, I just want to be ready. The bike is in great shape other than the shifters, but they are working fine now. I just need to properly lube them asap. I guess I need a small portable cable-cutter too, now that I think about it.

Metzinger

Or just pack a couple of cut-to-length inners with those downtube shifters.

esassaman

Thanks so much for all the advice and options. I wonder if spreading the frame for a whole new 9-speed setup is all that difficult? When you say spread do you mean to just force them apart to get the rear wheel in there? Or do you mean take it to a frame builder to do some kind of permanent frame bending magic (it's steel, yes) so that it will take a 9-speed setup? I've obviously got to be able to get the rear wheel out for field patching/repairs!

At this point I'd like to see how my existing RSX shifters hold up for a while before I go for the full component replacement, but I need to grease them, and it sounds like I can't really do it well unless I either ship them to someone that has experience with STI rebuilds that can take them apart and get some grease in there. I have fixed just about everything there is to fix on a bike but I admit taking the STI's apart is just too scary for me at this point. It's sounding like some kind of properly forumlated spray grease won't do the optimal job of greasing the innards, would you say that's correct? Are there some sealed parts or something that won't get greased? The WD-40 sure seems to have done the job of getting in there everywhere, dissolving the existing grease and freeing everything up, and I just gushed it in there until they where frothing with it. If I had the right kind of spray grease and did the same, wouldn't it grease the very parts that the WD-40 cleaned?

Or is one option to just carry around a tiny can of spray lube with me and just keep them nice and juicy the whole trip?

esassaman

Also, I think the advice to just not go on a trip with questionable parts is good, but frankly I'm just not that worried about it. Wire, duct tape, zip ties, extra parts, the right tools, random passers-by and fervent prayers to the nearest diety has gotten me through every near-disaster so far. It's all part of the challenge. I'll be as prepared as possible to fix stuff that breaks (and it will), we'll be prepared to camp anywhere, I'll be with someone else (on a brand new bike of their own) that could forage for critical parts/transportation at the nearest town, and I just won't be *that* far from civilization in western Europe, I'm not going off-road or anything. Shtuff happens!

Thasiet

There are just a lot of little parts that you need to make sure are lubricated. Even though the plural of anecdote isn't fact, Al1943's dura aces going nine years strong on only WD-40 certainly do challenge my earlier assertions. Perhaps in situations like Esassamans, where the only issue seems to be the old grease, a good flush and liquid lube is adequate. I wonder if a deeply thorough flush, like maybe a mineral spirits soak followed by a dunk in an ultrasonic cleaner, and a liberal application of a true lubricant like triflo, if such might even be better than adequate.

HillRider

That is exactly the technique I read about and did years ago.

You loosen the set screw and push out the pivot pin and spring to remove the lever/shifter mechanism from the handlebar body and soak it in mineral spirits for several hours with copious agitation (I used a lab magnetic stirrer set on high). You change the mineral spirits a couple of times and you will be astounded at what comes out. Remove the parts from the bath and let them dry, then flood every opening with Tri-Flow and reinstall them on the rest of the body.

I've got 8-speed 105 STI's that are 14 years old that were resurected this way and they are working very well to this day.

I do like that comment!

Kimmo 

Not really; you did say they have much tighter tolerances, which would do a better job of hanging onto the light oil in WD40... but having been intimate with the 600s, I'd say WD40 really wouldn't cut it for long, and grease is what's required.

I do like the idea of soaking and agitating all the old gunk out and replacing the lube without disassembly, but how to get grease in there?

Maybe there's a grade of grease you could throw in a saucepan and heat up till it flows into the innards when you submerge the levers...?
Well hey, since I had em apart, I figured I might as well go all the way... and anyway, that bit on my left shifter is what stopped it working.

Robert Thompson

I'm almost ready to delve into the innards of my RSX shifter. Can't nobody post a photo or two of the steps and the pieces, just in case someone gets lost or can't figure out something? I may never perform this operation again, so a visual guide would be great!

Robert