Gearslinger

Hi guys,

I answered a Craigslist ad yesterday and came home with a bunch of used parts for next to nothing. Among them was a spiffy lookin pair of Ultegra ST-6700 shifters but sadly they are not without issues. The front shifter works fine but for some reason the large lever on the rear shifter seems to only be capable of a single click.

Heres a video I recorded that shows what I mean:



Any ideas what might be going on here and if its fixable?

Looigi

Can't really tell if there is anything wrong without having proper cable tension from the RD on the shifter.

oldbobcat

Look for strands of old cable or even a stub of old broken cable in the barrel where the cable is anchored.

cycledogg

Check to see if the cable may have broke off at the connecting point in the shifter.

Andrew R Stewart 

Other issues common to old STI levers is the internal lube gets old and sticky preventing the ratchets from pivoting freely. As this problem grows the function (the clicks) get less and less distinctive and finially non existant. This lever is pretty new for this to be the case but in there is no cable end broken off and stuck inside sticky lube might be the problem. The fix is to solvent out the old lube and replace the lube with light weight spray on stuff followed by drip on medium weight lube. Andy.

Gearslinger

Don't think that is required. The front shifter has both of its clicks and I've tested other shifters like these with no cables attached and they clicked through the full range as well.

Ok will do. Thanks for the tip guys. Will post my findings after close examination.

Yeah that was my first thought as well but as you said it doesn't seem likely considering how new they are. Plus when that happens its usually the small lever that gets gummed up.

Gearslinger

Ok I had a look and it turns out the shifter cables were actually still attached, I just didn't notice them at first because they were hidden inside the housing where it was cut. After removing both shifter cables the front shifter still clicks nice and crisp but the rear won't click at all (either lever). After that I tried reinserting the cable but wasn't able to do it correctly because the shifter was stuck in low gear and for proper cable insertion it has to be in high gear.

I then decided to take a closer look at the inner mechanism so I rolled up the hood and unscrewed and removed the plastic plate covering the cable guide. After some fiddling around I discovered that if I push on the cable guide with my finger and THEN press the small lever it will start to shift. Once it gets past the first 2 gears I can stop pushing on the cable guide and it will click through the last 7 gears by only pressing the lever. Its just those first 2 gears that are the problem, they simply will not engage without putting manual pressure on that cable guide.

Hope that made enough sense. I'll see about recording another video later but not sure if I can since I need both hands on the shifter to do this. In the meantime if anyone has a theory on why this is happening I'd love to hear it.

Andrew R Stewart 

If this were Click and Clack you'd be hackled at for not providing full info Get acces to the inner cable (remove the casing or pull the lever off the bars) and clamp a vice grip to the inner cable, orrient the lever so the cable with the weight (vice grip) is hanging down, then try to opperate the levers again. If the inner cable end is not well seated in the pod carrier it can hang up and cause problems. Placing a weight (a pulling force) on the inner cable will help keep the cable head seated. Or just string up a new cable and casing, attach to the der and see what happens. Andy.

Gearslinger

Just to be clear my previous testing was done without the cable installed so improper seating of the cable end can't be the problem. Anyway I reinstalled the cable (properly seated) and when I add tension it clicks through all the gear positions without issue. As soon as I release tension the first 2 gears stop working again.

EDIT: HAH! I just took the shifter off the bars and now it works perfectly every time! Guess there wasn't a problem afterall.