Originally Posted by Doohickie

I disagree. I did all that fidgeting and once I got it tuned in, I loved it. (Then I traded the bike, but that's another story.) The secret is using the SIS shift cable housing at the rear derailleur. I think in the early days of indexed shifting, they hadn't figured that out yet and a lot of bikes used normal brake housing which resulted in sloppy indexing. Getting rid of that slop made the shifting quite crisp.

The bike I did that with was a 1987 Schwinn Prelude with the Light Action derailleur. According to catalogs it came with SIS shifters, but when I got this one, a previous owner had put really bad stem shifters on it. I picked up the indexed DT levers, put the SIS housing at the back and bingo- indexed shifting.