Originally Posted by
tomtomtom123
The bottom bit broke off from the cage when I was widening the sides, it wasn't intentional, .
I had a similar experience. I was trying to deform the cage of 105 double and that cage cracked. From then on I was to repair it, but then decided that, since I principally progressed towards shortening the cage, to go that other way. Incidentally I worked in the past with MTB triple derailleur cages, specifically XTR, and they were very forgiving as far as deformation was concerned. You could go back and forth with deformation and I never encountered the danger of cracking. Clearly the road cages are more fragile, made with less but harder and more brittle material.
Originally Posted by
tomtomtom123
At first, I was struggling to widen the cage, by bending the inner plate inwards, but then I figured the easiest way was to take 2 adjustable wrenches, fix one in a vice or clamp one to a table, stick the front half of the inner plate into that wrench, then take the 2nd wrench and close it over the rear half of the inner plate and bend it.
That is what I would normally do with the MTB cages.
Originally Posted by
tomtomtom123
I was thinking next time I may try the SRAM force 11 FD, which pivots the cage when shifting to give sharper angles. The SRAM force 11 shifter has no trim, only low and high. The product description says the pivoting action makes the trim unnecessary. But the specs drawing shows it needing more seat tube clearance for the swing mechanism than Shiman FDs so I'm not sure if it would actually work.
That sounds like progress indeed. I would be highly interested to learn if you were getting anywhere with such a derailleur.
On my side I am running out of time for tweaking as I depart tomorrow. I already declared a complete victory several times but those victories did not stick for long as tolerances for satisfactory operation were too narrow. I.e. now this has been after widening those tolerances to the level that one can live with. Again all is good and and I can take the derailleur off and on and get everything tuned to work but ultimately only the trip will tell how it all pans out. Following the discussion about shim profiles, I ramped my shim longitudinally to improve the derailleur angle. I also added a lip to the bottom of left side of the cage to improve upshift from the small to middle ring. The photos include a comparison of my current 105 to Ultegra with nearly identical shape to 105.
