I have a friend who is a bike technician look at it and showed me that the metal arm bent bent badly, so we straightened that out, then he noticed that piece that was connecting the the arm to the derailuer was bent. He still said it would work but suggested that I get a new one. mine bike is 8 years old with all original parts so I thought looking around might not be a bad idea, I've looked at buying locally but the stores bike guy doesn't seem interested in calling me back if he can help or not, even after I've called him a couple times so I went to look on the internet.